
Qass 
Book_ 



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CONSTRUCTIVE BIBLE STUDIES 

EDITED BY 
ERNEST DEWITT BURTON 



GREAT MEN OF THE 
CHRISTIAN CHURCH 



WILLISTON WALKEE 



Great Men of the 
Christian Church 



WILLISTON WALKER 

PEOFE^OB IN YALE UNIVEESITY 



Constructive Bible Studies 
Advanced and Supplementary Series 



CHICAGO 

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 

1908 



^"^^"l 



oo 



v/^ 



LfBRAHY of CONGRESS I 

Two Oor}'&:: Received 

DEC B^ 1908 

CLASS OL. KXC Ho. 



CUn 'd." 



COPTRTGHT 1908 By 
The University of Chicago 



PubUshed December 1908 



Composed and Printed By 

The University of Chicago Press 

Chicago, Illinois, U. S. A. 



PREFATORY NOTE 

This brief series of biographies is designed for the 
reader or student without technical training in church 
history. For this reason considerable attention has 
been paid to the general condition of the church or 
of religious thought in the periods in which the 
leaders here described did their work, in order that 
the reader may appreciate their relations to their 
times. The number of biographies might well have 
been increased and the selection may easily be criti- 
cized; but the writer believes that none have been 
chosen who were not really representative men, and 
his aim has been to illustrate the manifold variety 
of Christian service, life, and experience. Missions 
will have their separate treatment in another volume 
from a different pen. 

In mentioning additional reading the aim has been 
to present a few only of the most accessible works 
in the English language. Questions have been ap- 
pended to facilitate review or to aid possible instruct- 
ors who have made no special study of church history. 

Yale University 
May I, 1908 



vii 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Justin Martyr i 

TeRTULLIAN 21 

Athanasius 41 

Augustine 6^ 

Patrick 85 

Benedict loi 

HiLDEBRAND II7 

Godfrey 139 

Francis 157 

Thomas Aquinas 175 

John Wiclif 195 

Martin Luther 215 

John Calvin 235 

John Knox 253 

Ignatius Loyola 271 

George Fox 285 

nicolaus ludwig von zinzendorf . . . . 30i 

John Wesley 319 

Jonathan Edwards 339 

Horace Bushnell 355 

Index 371 



JUSTIN MARTYR 



I 

JUSTIN MARTYR 

To pass from the time of the Pauline epistles to 
the mdddle of the second century is to come into a 
very different world of thought. The old battle 
which the Apostle to the Gentiles had bravely fought 
against the imposition of a legalistic Jewish yoke 
upon heathen converts had become well-nigh for- 
gotten ancient history. The destruction of Jeru- 
salem (a. d. 70) and the rapid growth of churches on 
Gentile soil had shifted the center of gravity of the 
Christian population, so that the vast majority of 
disciples were now of heathen antecedents. Of all 
parts of the Roman Empire, Asia Minor was that in 
which the church was now most strongly represented. 
Syria, northward of Palestine, Macedonia, and 
Greece were only in less degree its home. Probably 
it was already growing strong in Egypt. A close- 
knit, extensive, influential, Greek-speaking congre- 
gation was to be found in Rome, and a group of 
small assemblies existed in the Rhone Valley of what 
is now France. Probably, but less certainly, the 
church was already well represented in the old Car- 
thaginian region of Africa; but, in general, the Latin 
portion of the Empire was as yet little reached by 
the gospel. 

3 



4 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

Christians, though rapidly growing in numbers, 
were still chiefly from the lower classes of the popu- 
lation and of slight social influence. They were 
knit to one another by a common belief in God and 
Christ; a confidence in a divine revelation contained 
in the Old Testament and continued through men 
of the gospel age and subsequent times by the ever- 
working Spirit of God ; a morality relatively high as 
compared with that of surrounding heathenism; 
and a confident hope that the present evil world was 
speedily to pass away, and the Kingdom of God to 
be established in its stead. As sojourners separated 
from the world they owed each other aid, and devel- 
oped a noble Christian benevolence. 

Yet, though the Christianity of the middle of the 
second century had possessed itself fully of Paul's 
freedom from Jewish ceremonialism, it was far from 
being Pauline. It did not consciously reject him; 
but it was unable to grasp his more spiritual concep- 
tions of sin and grace and the significance of Christ's 
death. Paul had been only one, if the greatest, 
of the missionaries by whom Christianity had been 
preached. To ordinary disciples of heathen ante- 
cedents Christ seemed primarily the revealer of the 
one true God whom heathenism had but dimly 
known, and the proclaimer of a new and purer law of 
right living. God, through Christ, had revealed his 
nature and purposes, and had given new command- 
ments which were to be fulfilled by chaste living and 



JUSTIN MARTYR 5 

Upright conduct. '* Keep the commandments of the 
Lord, and thou shalt be well-pleasing to God, and 
shalt be enrolled among the number of them that 
keep his commandments,"^ said Hermas, writing at 
Rome between 130 and 140; but he added with an 
utterly un-Pauline feeling of the possibility of works of 
supererogation: "but if thou do any good thing out- 
side the commandment of God, thou shalt win for 
thyself more exceeding glory." "Fasting is better 
than prayer, but almsgiving than both," said a 
preacher to his hearers a few years later, probably 
in Corinth or Rome.* 

These changing conceptions of the Christian life 
were not the chief perils, however, which Christianity 
was encountering. It had come into no world 
empty of thought. As we do now, that age attempted 
to interpret the gospel message in the light of its 
own science and its own conceptions. It had its 
own philosophies and its own religions with their 
secrets for those initiated into their mysteries. The 
result was a'fiumber of interpretations of Christianity, 
called in general "Knowledge" {yv(b(ri<;), the thought 
being that those who possessed this inner and deeper 
understanding knew the real essence of the gospel 
much better than the ordinary believer. Gnos- 
ticism had its beginnings before the later books of 
the New Testament were written. The Pastoral 

» Similitudes, y.^. 

a The Sermon erroneously called II Clement, chap. 16. 



6 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

Epistles and the Johannine literature, whenever 
composed, contain clear references to it.^ Its full 
systems did not, however, develop their power till the 
second quarter of the second century. Gnosticism 
had many forms, but its essential feature was that 
it made the God of the Old Testament a relatively 
weak and imperfect being. It taught that the perfect 
and hitherto unknown God, far abler and better than 
the God of the Old Testament, sent Christ to reveal 
himself and to give men the knowledge by which 
they can be brought from the kingdom of evil to 
that of Hght. Since most Gnostics regarded this 
physical world as evil, any real incarnation was 
unthinkable, and Christ's death can have been in 
appearance only. If his body was more than a 
ghostly deception, then Jesus was a man indwelt by 
the divine Christ only from his baptism to shortly 
before his expiring agony on the cross. 

This thinking, though urged by men of great 
abihty, denied the historic continuity of Christianity 
with the Old Testament revelation, it rejected a real 
incarnation, and it changed Christianity from a 
historic faith to a higher form of knowledge for the 
initiated, explanatory of the origin and nature of 
the universe. This Gnostic crisis was the most 
severe through which the church had yet passed; 
and its dangers were doubly increased when essen- 
tially Gnostic views of the Old Testament and of the 

I E.g., I Tim. 1:4; 6:20; II Tim. 3:6-8; I John 4:2, 3. 



JUSTIN MARTYR 7 

inferior character of the God therein revealed, though 
by no means all the Gnostic positions, were advocated 
by a man of deep religious spirit, in some respects 
the first church reformer of history, Marcion. Hav- 
ing come from Asia Minor to Rome about 140, he 
broke with the Roman church in 144, charging it, 
not wholly groundlessly, with having perverted 
Paul's Gospel to a new Jewish legalism. To him 
Paul was the only genuine apostle; and he gathered 
a little collection of sacred writings, including ten of 
Paul's epistles and the Gospel of Luke, but shorn 
of all passages intimating that the God of the Old 
Testament was identical with Him whom Christ 
revealed. All the rest of the apostles and of our 
New Testament writings he rejected. It was indeed 
true that the church of his day was un-Pauline; but 
his Paulinism was of a type which Paul himself 
would have been the first to discredit. 

To the Gnostics the party in the church repre-'" 
senting historic Christianity replied by gathering a 
collection of authoritative writings, the major part 
of our New Testament; by the preparation of creeds, 
of which that at the basis of what we wrongly call 
the "Apostles" is the earliest; and, especially, by ap- 
peahng to the teaching handed down in the churches 
founded by the apostles, and guaranteed by the con- 
tinuity of their officers. Out of this struggle the 
rigid, doctrinally conservative, legalistic church of the 
third century — the " Old^Catholic " church — came. 



8 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

To these perils from within were added the 
dangers which sprang from popular hatred, due to 
heathen misunderstanding and jealousy, and to the 
occasional active hostility of the Roman government, 
which viewed the new rehgion as unpatriotic and 
stubborn because of the unwillingness of its ad- 
herents to conform to the worship prescribed by the 
state. Its feeling was much that which would 
animate many among us should any considerable 
party now refuse to honor the flag. To the unthink- 
-ing, because they refused to join in the worship 
which the state required, the Christians seemed at 
once atheistic and unpatriotic. Popular superstition, 
because of their refusal to share in heathen festivals 
and their worship by themselves, charged them with 
practices of revolting immorality. The Jews, also, 
though politically insignificant, were critical of 
Christianity; and, existing as they did in every large 
Roman community, their objections had to be met. 
These conditions determined Justin's work. He 
would defend Christianity against its heathen 
opponents, its Jewish critics, and its enemies within 
its own household. Hence the threefold battle which 
he fought. 

Justin, in whom is to be seen one of the most 
characteristic Christian figures, as well as one of the 
most useful Christian writers, of the second century, 
was a native of Flavia Neapolis, near the older 
Shechem, in ancient Samaria. Though thus born 



JUSTIN MARTYR 9 

within the bounds of Palestine, and speaking of 
himself as a Samaritan, he was uncircumcised and 
doubtless of heathen origin and training. It was 
not till after his conversion that he became familiar 
with the Old Testament. Of the date of his birth 
nothing certain is known; but it must have been not 
far from the year loo. From early youth he was 
evidently studious, and he gives, in his Dialogue 
with TryphOy^ a picturesque account of his search 
for a satisfactory philosophy. His first initiation 
was through a Stoic, but when he sought knowledge 
of God this instructor told him it was needless. He 
then turned to the Aristotelians, but the promptness 
with which the teacher sought his fee made him 
doubt the genuineness of such interested claims. A 
Pythagorean next was sought, but this philosopher 
insisted on extensive preliminary acquaintance with 
music, astronomy, and geometry. Discouraged thus, 
Justin now turned with hope to a Platonist, and 
found real satisfaction in this most spiritual of ancient 
philosophies. He must have made no little progress 
in his new studies, for he now adopted the philoso- 
pher's cloak as his distinctive garb — a dress which 
he thenceforth always wore. Yet, even while a 
Platonist, the constancy with which Christians met 
death impressed him, and led him to doubt the 
crimes with which they were popularly charged. It 
was through the gateway of his beloved philosophy 

» Chap. ii. 



lo GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

that Justin was to be brought, however, into the 
Christian fold. As he tells the story, a chance meet- 
ing with an old man, as he walked by the sea, prob- 
ably near Ephesus, resulted in a discussion in which 
his adviser turned his attention to the prophets as 
" men more ancient than all those who are esteemed 
philosophers, both righteous and beloved of God, 
who spoke by the Divine Spirit, and foretold events 
which would take place, and which are now taking 

place Their writings are still extant."' The 

effect upon the inquirer was immediate and power- 
ful. "Straightway," he records, "a flame was 
kindled in my soul; and a love of the prophets, and 
of those men who are friends of Christ, possessed 
me; and .... I found this philosophy alone to 
be safe and profitable. Thus, and for this reason, I 
am a philosopher."^ 

This conversion, whether the exact circumstances 
narrated are historic or are the product of Justin's 
literary skill, took place, we may conjecture, before 
A. D. 135, and therefore before he had reached 
middle life.^ Its fundamental experience was in 
entire harmony with Justin's previous philosophic 

1 Dialogue, chap. vii. 

2 Ihid., chap. viii. 

3 In his Dialogtie he pictures his conversion as having oc- 
curred, possibly some considerable time, before his meeting with 
the Jew, Trypho, who is represented as " having escaped from the 
war lately carried on" in Judea, i. e., Bar Cochba's rebellion, 
132-35- 



JUSTIN|MARTYR ii 

training. Its central feature was not, as with Paul, a 
profound sense of sin, and of new life through union 
with Christ, but rather a conviction that God had 
spoken through the prophets and revealed truth in 
Christ, and in this message alone was to be found the 
true philosophy of conduct and life and the real ex- 
planation of the world here and hereafter. To him 
the Old Testament was always the Book of books; 
but primarily because it foretold the Christ that was 
to come. For these truths he was willing to suffer; 
and to teach them became henceforth his employ- 
ment. Just where he lived and labored it is, in 
general, impossible to say ; but he was in Rome soon 
after the year 150, and it was there that he was later 
to meet his death. 

It was at Rome, not improbably in 152 or 153, 
and certainly within the four or five years immediately 
subsequent to 150, that Justin wrote his noteworthy 
defense of Christianity against its heathen opponents 
which placed him first among Christian " apologists. '* 
This earnest appeal for justice — the Apology^ — is 
addressed to the emperor, Antoninus Pius (138- 
161), and his adopted sons, Marcus AureHus and 
Lucius Verus. In direct and manly fashion he calls 
upon these rulers to ascertain whether Christians 
are really guilty of the charges popularly laid against 

I The so-called First and Second Apologies are really one. 
They may be found, in English translation in, The Ante-Nicene 
Fathers, I, 163-93. 



12 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

them^and not to condemn them on the mere name. 
The Christians are accused of atheism, but they 
disown only the old gods, whose existence Justin 
does not deny, but whom he regards as wicked 
demons. 

We confess that we are atheists, so far as gods of this sort 
are concerned, but not with respect to the most true God, the 
Father of righteousness and temperance and the other virtues, 
who is free from all impurity. 

They are charged with disloyalty to the Roman 
state; but that is due to a misunderstanding of the 
nature of the kingdom that Christians seek. 

When you hear that we look for a kingdom you suppose, 
without making any inquiry, that we speak of a human king- 
dom; whereas we speak of that which is with God. 

Christians are not disloyal. On the contrary 
their principles make them the best of citizens. 

More than all other men we are your helpers and allies 
in promoting peace, seeing that we hold this view, that it is 
alike impossible for the wicked, the covetous, the conspirator, 
and for the virtuous, to escape the notice of God, and that 
each man goes to everlasting punishment or salvation accord- 
ing to the value of his actions. 

Christians worship God, Justin declares, ration- 
ally; not by destroying the good things he has given 
by useless sacrifices, but offering 

thanks by invocations and hymns for our creation, and for all 
the means of health, and for the various qualities of the differ- 
ent kinds of things, and for the changes of the seasons; and to 
present before Him petitions for our existing again in incor- 



JUSTIN MARTYR 13 

ruption through faith in Him. Our teacher of these things is 
Jesus Christ, who also was born for this purpose, and was 
crucified under Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, in the 
times of Tiberius Caesar; and that we reasonably worship 
Him, having learned that He is the son of the true God Him- 
self, and holding Him in the second place, and the prophetic 
Spirit in the third, we will prove. 

The last quotation shows that Justin's view of 
Christ had not developed the form which we are 
accustomed to connect with the doctrine of the Trin- 
ity, judged by the standards of the fourth and fifth 
centuries. He has a doctrine of the Trinity, but it is 
relatively unthought-out. Yet his view of Christ is 
lofty indeed. It sees in him the divine activity 
always manifest in the world, the constant outflowing 
of the wisdom of God, or we might say, the intel- 
ligence of God in action. Taking up the ''Logos" 
doctrine of the Stoic philosophers, so akin in many 
respects to that of the Fourth Gospel, and so easily 
combined with the conception of the divine "Wis- 
dom," set forth, for example in Proverbs,^ Justin 
taught that the divine intelligence had been always 
at work, not merely in creation and in the revelation 
of God to an Abraham or a Moses, but illuminating 
a Socrates or a Heraclitus, and the source of all good 
everywhere. In Jesus, this divine Wisdom was fully 
revealed. It, or to reflect Justin's view we should 
say He, "took shape, and became man, and was 
called Jesus Christ." 

» Prov. 8:22-31. 



14 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

In speaking of Justin's conversion, mention was 
made of the importance which he attached to the 
prophets and to the fulfilment of their utterances. 
They were men " through whom the prophetic Spirit 
published beforehand things that were to come to 
pass." It was therefore natural that a large part 
of his Apology and of his Dialogue with Trypho was 
devoted to an exposition of such of their utterances 
as he believed bore on the life and significance of 
Christ; but he went much farther. Like Jewish 
writers before him, he looked upon the philosophers 
of Greece, especially his honored Plato, as having 
borrowed much from Moses. In Christianity was 
that true philosophy which all the philosophers, in 
so far as they have seen truth at all, have dimly 
perceived. The Jews, in his opinion, had special 
ordinances, such as the Sabbath, circumcision, and 
abstinence from unclean meats, given them on 
account of the peculiar "hardness of their hearts;" 
but Christ has now established "another covenant 
and another law. " He has revealed God and God's 
will to men; has overcome the demons who deceived 
men and delighted in their sins, whom Justin iden- 
tifies with the old gods; and has appointed baptism 
as the rite effecting the remission of offenses. Christ's 
work is, in Justin's estimation, essentially that of a 
Revealer and Lawgiver, though he is not without 
some appreciation of the saving significance of his 
life and death and declares that "we trust in the 



JUSTINIMARTYR 15 

blood of salvation." This redeeming aspect of 
Christ's work remains, however, relatively unde- 
veloped. 

Thus Justin defended Christianity against its hea- 
then and its Jewish critics. He also replied to its 
foes of its own household, but his writings against 
Marcion are lost. His attitude may, however, be 
surmised from his declaration that " the devils put 
forward Marcion of Pontus. " The contest with 
Gnosticism was, indeed, strenuous; but charity to- 
ward those deemed '' heretics" was never one of 
the virtues of the early church. 

A most interesting glimpse is afforded in Justin's 
Apology of the yet simple worship of the Roman 
church in the middle of the second century. Admis- 
sion to its membership was by faith, repentance, 
an upright life, and baptism, though in Justin's view 
faith is primarily an acceptance of Christ's teachings 
rather than as with Paul a new personal relationship. 

As many as are persuaded and believe that what we teach 
and say is true, and undertake to be able to live accordingly, 
are instructed to pray and to entreat God with fasting, for 
the remission of their sins that are past, we praying and fasting 
with them. Then they are brought by us where there is 
water, and are regenerated in the same manner in which we 
were ourselves regenerated. 

He who was baptized was counted fully of the 
church and shared in its worship. On Sunday 
the congregations gathered in city or country; the 
"memoirs of the apostles," i.e., the gospels, or 



i6 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

''the writings of the prophets" were read. Then 
the ''president/' for Justin avoids technical terms 
for church officers, "verbally instructed," that is, 
preached a sermon. Next, all rose and prayed 
standing, the "president" doubtless leading, and the 
people responding "Amen." Prayer ended, they 
"saluted one another with a kiss." Bread and 
wine mingled with water were next brought to the 
"president," probably by the deacons; and after 
"prayers and thanksgivings" offered by him, the 
Lord's Supper was administered to those present, and 
the consecrated elements were taken by the deacons 
to the absent. The service closed with a collection, 
from which the necessities of widows, orphans, the 
ill, prisoners, and strangers were relieved; for "the 
wealthy among us help the needy, and we always 
keep together. " A pleasing picture, surely, of the 
simple worship and mutual helpfulness of what it 
must be remembered were still close-knit little con- 
gregations, regarding themselves as separate from 
the world, and all too unjustly looked upon by it as 
misanthropic, unpatriotic, atheistical, and guilty of 
secret crimes. 

Justin himself was to receive the crown of martyr- 
dom. After the composition of his Apology he left 
Rome, but of his journeys we know nothing, and he 
was back in the city where he was to die during the 
governorship of its "prefect," Junius Rusticus, that 
is between 163 and 167, in the early part of the reign 



JUSTIN MARTYR 17 

of Marcus Aurelius. The account of his trial gives 
an interesting picture of the examination of a com- 
pany of Christians at the bar of Roman justice.^ 
In form, as in all ancient procedure, it was much 
like an examination in a modern police court, the 
judge questioning and sentencing the prisoners. 
Justin was brought before Rusticus, with six other 
Christians, one a woman, whom the judge evidently 
regarded as his disciples. 

Rusticus the prefect said to Justin, "Obey the gods at 
once, and submit to the Kings." Justin said, "To obey the 
commandments of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, is worthy neither 
of blame nor of condemnation." Rusticus the prefect said, 
"What kind of doctrines do you profess?" Justin said, "I 
have endeavored to learn all doctrines; but I have acquiesced 
at last in the true doctrines, namely of the Christians, even 
though they do not please those who hold false opinions." 
Rusticus the prefect said, "Are those the doctrines that please 
you, you utterly wretched man?" Justin said, "Yes, since 
I adhere to them with orthodoxy. "^ 

Justin then tried to explain Christianity; but the 
judge soon cut him short. 

Rusticus the prefect said, "Tell me where you assemble, 
or into what place do you collect your followers?" Justin 
said, "I live above one Martinus, at the Timiotinian Bath; 
and during the whole time (and I am now living in Rome for 
the second time) I am unaware of any other meeting than his." 

I Its genuineness, formerly doubted, is now generally admitted. 
See Harnack, Geschichte der altchrist. Litteratur, Chronologie, 
I, 282. 

» The Ante-Nicene Fathers^ I, 305, 306. 



i8 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

Whether this was literally so may be doubted, 
but Justin was not unnaturally anxious to prevent 
persecution extending to his fellow-Christians.^ 

Rusticus said, "Are you not then a Christian?" Justin 
said, "Yes, I am a Christian." 

Thus satisfied of the guilt of the prisoner, the 
judge turned to his six fellow-accused, and tried to 
make several of them acknowledge themselves 
Justin's disciples. They all promptly owned them- 
selves Christians, but gave evasive answers as to 
Justin's share in their conversion, doubtless wishing 
to shield him. But the judge was disposed to over- 
look the past provided the prisoners would now 
yield full obedience. Here came, as in most early 
Christian trials, the real test of steadfastness; and 
a terrible test it was. A pinch of incense cast on 
the fire burning on the altar before the bench would 
have freed them; but it v/ould, in the opinion of 
the time, have been a denial of Christ. 

The prefect says to Justin, "Hearken, you who are called 
learned, and think that you know true doctrines; if you are 
scourged and beheaded, do you believe you will ascend into 
heaven ?" Justin said, "I hope that, if I endure these things, 
I shall have His gifts. For I know that, to all who have thus 
lived, there abides the divine favor until the completion of the 
whole world." Rusticus the prefect said, "Do you suppose, 
then, that you will ascend into heaven to receive some recom- 

I Possibly Justin meant that his was the only " school " where 
Christianity was taught in Rome, See Harnack, Die Mission 
und Ausbreitung des Christentums, p. 260. 



JUSTIN MARTYR 19 

pense?" Justin said, "I do not suppose it, but I know and 
am fully persuaded of it." Rusticus the prefect said, "Let 
us, then, now come to the matter in hand, and which presses. 
Having come together, offer sacrifice with one accord to the 
gods. " Justin said, "No right-thinking person falls away from 
piety to impiety." Rusticus the prefect said, "Unless ye obey, 
ye shall be mercilessly punished." Justin said, "Through 
prayer we can be saved on account of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
even when we have been punished, because this shall become to 
us salvation and confidence at the more fearful and universal 
judgment-seat of our Lord and Saviour." Thus also said the 
other martyrs: "Do what you will, for we are Christians, and 
do not sacrifice to idols." Rusticus the prefect pronounced 
sentence, saying, "Let those who have refused to sacrifice to 
the gods and to yield to the command of the emperor be 
scourged, and led away to suffer the punishment of decapita- 
tion, according to the laws. " 

So died, a martyr for his faith, one of the most 
deserving of the Christian leaders of the second 
century. 

QUESTIONS 

1. What was the state of Christianity in the middle of 
the second century ? Its geographical extent ? Its external 
enemies ? 

2. How far was this Christianity Pauline ? 

3. Gnosticism, its nature and dangers ? How was it met ? 

4. The circumstances of Justin's life? His conversion? 
His chief writings ? 

5. Against what charges and how does he defend the Chris- 
tians? 

6. Justin's view of Christ ? 

7. His valuation of the Old Testament ? His opinion of 
the old gods ? 



20 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

8. How does he describe the terms of admission to the 
church ? Its services ? 

9. The circumstances of Justin's trial and death. 

ADDITIONAL READING 
F. W. Farrar, Lives of the Fathers (New York, 1889), I, 93- 

117. 

Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (New York, 
1889), II, 710-26. 



TERTULLIAN 



II 

TERTULLIAN 

The general tendencies characteristic of the church 
in the days of Justin continued to show their force 
during the half-century that followed his martyr- 
dom. At his death the Gnostic movement, against 
which he struggled, was at its height. It continued 
to engage the opposing strength of the ablest cham- 
pions of what was beginning to call itself the " Catho- 
lic," that is "Universal," church, in distinction from 
all "heretical " bodies. That name goes back indeed 
to Ignatius of Antioch, and the opening years of 
the second century ; but was used by him as a desig- 
nation of the ideal communion of all Christians, as 
we now speak of the "invisible" church. But, by 
the close of the second century, it was becoming 
the designation of the visible, close-knit body, 
spreading throughout the Roman Empire, and 
representing historic Christianity over against the 
more recent speculations of Gnosticism. Its em- 
phasis on the succession of its officers as guarantee- 
ing the continuity of its faith, its insistence on testing 
purity of doctrine by creeds, and its recognition of a 
collection of authoritative New Testament books, 
were the chief means by which it fought the "here- 
tics;" but these characteristics tended rapidly to 

23 



24 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

bind Christianity with fixed forms of worship, of 
doctrine, and of organization, to legalize and exter- 
nalize it, and were therefore producing that com- 
pactly organized, rigid form of the church which 
has been well called by modern scholars the "Old 
Catholic," to distinguish it from the later Greek 
and Roman Catholic churches, which in so many 
ways resembled it. 

Yet it would be wrong to look upon this develop- 
ment as wholly an evil. No organization less com- 
pact and united could probably have conquered the 
Roman Empire. It is difficult, moreover, to see in 
what other ways the Gnostics could have been over- 
come. What could a Christian of the second cen- 
tury answer to their claims to a new and profound 
knowledge of Christianity, but that their views were 
not contained in the writings of apostles and Evangel- 
ists, and had never been taught by the responsible 
officers of the churches which the apostles founded ? 
The result of this reply was, however, twofold. It 
emphasized the feeling that the bishops, who had 
become well-nigh universal by the middle of the 
second century, by reason of their position as heads 
of important churches, were guardians of the faith 
handed down from the apostles; and it specially 
increased the prestige, as fountains of pure doctrine, 
of those churches in which the apostles themselves 
had labored. There, certainly, it was easy to think, 
men would know what the apostles had taught, and 



TERTULLIAN 25 

by them error could be detected and resisted. Of 
these apostolic churches there were many in the 
eastern half of the Empire; but the West claimed 
only one — that of Rome — rendered doubly in- 
fluential by its position in the capital of the Empire 
and its numerous congregation. Hence we find 
the anti-heretical champions of the latter half of the 
second century urging the necessity of agreement in 
doctrine with Rome. Not that they recognized in 
the Roman church any legislative authority; but 
because Christian truth had there been handed down 
since Paul; and Peter also (so men of the closing 
quarter of the second century firmly, and probably 
truly, believed), had there taught and suffered. 

Conspicuous among these champions was Ire- 
naeus, the ablest theologian of the second century. 
While recent discussion has been much divided as 
to the epoch of his birth, ^ he was evidently a native 
of Asia Minor, and in youth a hearer of the martyr, 
Polycarp of Smyrna, who, in turn, had listened to 
the apostle John. How much Irenaeus received 
from Polycarp may well be questioned, but he un- 
doubtedly represented and transmitted the Asia 
Minor type of theology, of which the Johannine 
Gospel and epistles are the highest productions. 
His work was not to be, however, in his native region. 
About 154 he visited Rome; and, before 177, was 

I Zahn puts it about 115; Harnack, 135-142. Polycarp 
suffered February 23, 155. 



26 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

a presbyter in the far-off Christian outpost of Lyons 
in what is now France. In the year last mentioned 
a severe persecution of that congregation began. Its 
aged bishop, Pothinus, suffered martyrdom; and to 
the ofhce thus made vacant Irenaeus succeeded, 
holding it till his death, soon after 190. Here in the 
closing years of his bishopric, 181-89, ^^ wrote his 
chief work, Against Heresies. To him the New 
Testament is fully as authoritative as the Old, and 
the tradition handed down in churches of apostolic 
foundation is its proper interpreter. Scripture and 
tradition alike, he urged, give no countenance to the 
Gnosticism which he elaborately described and 
refuted. But he had his own clear central theologic 
thought of the work of Christ. He is the most 
original theologian since Paul. God made man in 
his own image and Hke himself immortal ; but Adam 
broke this union and destroyed in large part God's 
work, man becoming mortal thereby. In Christ the 
work so interrupted has been restored; mortaHty 
becomes immortal; and hence he is the head of a 
redeemed humanity.' It is interesting to note also, 
that in Irenaeus we find the earliest clear intimation 
of the prevalence of infant baptism;^ and that his own 
anticipation, like that of the apostolic age, placed 
the coming of Christ to reign over a redeemed earth 
near at hand. In Irenaeus Gnosticism had its most 

» Book III, 18, I. 
« Book II, 22, 4. 



TERTULLIAN 27 

able opponent, and the forming "Old Catholic" 
church one of its most gifted defenders. 

Irenaeus belonged to two epochs. In him the 
traditional theology of the early church as illustrated 
in such a doctrine as that of Christ's speedy second 
coming was combined with the newer emphasis on 
creed, organization, and orderly succession — thoughts 
which logically involved the expectation of a slow 
and long-protracted growth of the church. In most 
minds the millennial anticipation was growing dim, 
and close-knit order, regular succession, and agree- 
ment with generally recognized creeds were becoming 
the tests of the true church, rather than that imme- 
diate, enthusiastic confidence in the leadership of the 
Spirit and his inspiration of " spirit-filled " men which 
had marked the apostolic age^ and persisted in ever- 
weakening measure into the second century. It 
was natural, however, that a reaction in favor of the 
older views should manifest itself, and such a revival 
of the earlier faith in the direct and present special 
inspiration of Christians by the Spirit appeared in 
an exaggerated form in Montanism. 

Soon after the middle of the second century, pos- 
sibly in 157, Montanus, who is said to have been a 
recently Christianized priest of Cybele, began his 
teaching in Phrygia, in Asia Minor. With him as 
a prophet were soon joined two prophetesses, Prisca 
and Maximilla, the latter of whom survived her 

I E. g., I Cor. 12:4-11. 



28 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

associates and died in 179. To their thinking the 
promise of Christ that "the Spirit of Truth"' should 
come was fulfilled in their utterances. They affirmed 
the immediately approaching end of the world; and 
declared that, as a preparation, all Christians should 
lead lives of peculiar asceticism. Paul had recom- 
mended abstinence from marriage for the same rea- 
son,* but the ascetic spirit had been steadily rising 
since his time, and Montanus went much farther. 
He commended virginity as specially pleasing to 
God, condemned a second marriage as unlawful, 
and greatly multiplied and increased the strenuous- 
ness of fasts. Martyrdom was not to be avoided 
by flight, but sought as an honor to Christ. These 
views won widespread following, and were soon 
represented, not only in Asia Minor, but in the 
western portions of the Empire, where their ascetic 
rather than their prophetic aspects won most ap- 
proval. 
/^ Such was the situation in the church when 
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus began his 
noteworthy activity as a writer on Christian themes. 
Born in the ancient Carthage, probably between the 
years 150 and 155, he was the son of a centurion in 
Roman service, and was educated in the excellent 
schools of that flourishing capital of Roman North 
Africa as a heathen. Here and at Rome he studied 

« John 16:13. 

a I Cor. 7:7, 24-40. 



TERTULLIAN 29 

rhetoric and philosophy, and gained considerable 
acquaintance with law, though the extent of his legal 
knowledge has probably been usually exaggerated. 
Of passionate, fiery nature, intense in all that he did, 
his life as a heathen attorney in Carthage, or pos- 
sibly also in Rome, was not unspotted ; and on his 
conversion to Christianity, an event which occurred 
in one of the years from about 185 to 195, he mani- 
fested at once a Puritan severity. He was chosen 
a presbyter at some uncertain date, but probably 
not long after his conversion. He never rose to 
higher rank in the ministry. In 202 or 203, during 
the reign of Septimius Severus, a wave of persecu- 
tion swept over the North African church, and it is 
probable that in connection with its strenuous 
sifting of the disciples there Tertullian became 
acquainted with the courage and enthusiasm of the 
Montanists. Their asceticism attracted him. By 
206-8, he had attached himself to them wholly and 
had broken with the "Old Catholic" church, which 
from now onward he unsparingly condemned. 
All of his later writings show him as a convinced 
Montanist ; but, if a tradition preserved by Augustine 
is to be trusted, he separated in old age from even 
these associates and founded a little sect of his own. 
Certainly so-called Tertullianists were to be found 
in Carthage nearly two centuries subsequent to his 
death, which took place not long after the year 222. 
Great as his services to theology, especially to that 



so GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

of Latin Christendom, were to be, this Montanism, 
so congenial to his enthusiastic and Puritanic tem- 
perament, has robbed him of the fame that would 
otherwise have been his. Without this "heresy," 
he would undoubtedly have lived in Christian tra- 
dition as "Saint" Tertullian. Yet his asceticishi 
went little farther than that which the "Catholic" 
church was to praise within two centuries of his 
death; while his faith in the prophetic claims of 
Montanism was hardly more than an exaggeration 
of that belief in the guidance of the Holy Spirit which 
had been universal in the church of the apostolic age. 

Tertullian' s chief fame is as a writer. Though 
he used Greek freely and wrote in that language 
treatises that are now lost, North Africa was a Latin- 
speaking land, and Latin was the vehicle which he 
preferred. By its use he became "the father of 
church Latinity. " He stamped the impress of his 
own thought and usage permanently on the language. 
Nervous, vigorous, often strained and far-fetched in 
his speech, he is always the passionate advocate of 
his cause. Tertullian was never dull. He was 
often unfair to opponents, not always consistent with 
himself, but always readable and effective. His 
force was that of a mighty, passionate personality, 
who felt strongly and wrote at a white heat. 

Tertullian' s tracts, about thirty of which have 
survived, naturally fall into three great groups, the 
earliest, written before 202, which show no Mon- 



TERTULLIAN 31 

tanist leanings, those of his transition period, and 
those after his breach with the "Old Catholic" 
church and full acceptance of Montanism. His vehe- 
ment invective, always marked, rises to its greatest 
heights as he feels himself the representative of a 
small and rejected Christian party. 

TertuUian's writings embrace a great variety of 
themes. He defended his conceptions of Christian- 
ity against Marcion, Praxeas, and other "heretics.'^ 
He exhorted his readers to modesty in apparel and 
conduct. He warned against the theater, second 
marriages, or flight in persecution. He encouraged 
martyrs. He discussed the soul, baptism, penance, 
patience, prayer, idolatry, the resurrection. The 
whole round of Christian life and doctrine interested 
him. 

To TertuUian's thinking Christianity is a great 
divine foolishness, wiser than the merely human 
wisdom of the deepest philosophies, but in no way 
to be squared with them. "Away with all attempts 
to produce a mottled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic, 
and dialectic composition. We want no curious 
disputation after possessing Christ Jesus, no in- 
quisition after enjoying the gospel. With our faith 
we desire no further belief."^ This was the direct 
contradiction, not merely of the Gnostic position, but 
of the influential school of theology then beginning 
in Alexandria, of which Origen was to be the most 

» Prescription^ chap. vii. 



32 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

brilliant teacher. That school viewed philosophy 
as the handmaid of a true theology, and sought to 
unite the two in a great intellectual explanation of 
Christian truth. Christianity, in Tertullian's teach- 
ing, demands a complete change of life. Christ 
"preached the new law and the new promise of the 
kingdom of heaven."' This Christian inheritance 
is the possession solely, Tertullian argues, of the 
orthodox church. In his Prescription against Here- 
tics, written between 198 and 203, and therefore 
before he became a Montanist, he denies to the 
"heretics" any right in the Scriptures, or any share 
in true Christian tradition, and appeals to the 
churches founded by the apostles as the depositaries 
and guardians of the truth. That truth once pos- 
sessed, it is merely idle curiosity to inquire farther. 
"You must 'seek' until you 'find,' and believe when 
you have found ; nor have you anything further to do 
but to keep what you have believed."^ The prin- 
ciple he here enunciates is one of mighty influence 
in the church till the Reformation broke its fetters. 
It makes it the prime duty of the Christian to accept 
unquestioningly the faith which the church trans- 
mits to him. 

Tertullian has, however, a keener sense of the 
depths of human sinfulness, and of the need of divine 
grace for man's rescue than any writer had possessed 

I Prescription^ chap. xiii. 
a Ihid.y chap. ix. 



TERTULLIAN 33 

since Paul. Christianity is above all a revelation of 
salvation; and this primacy of the great doctrines of 
sin and grace he was to impress on the Latin portion 
of Christendom to a degree never paralleled in the 
East, and that may be said to have influenced ulti- 
mately all Latin and Reformation thought. But 
though profoundly conscious of the reality and de- 
pravity of sin, Tertullian lays great weight on works 
in his doctrine of salvation. We are ^'competitors 
for salvation in earning the favor of God;"' by public 
confession, by ''mortification of our flesh and spirit." 
we " make satisfaction for our former sins. "^ These 
merits flow chiefly from confession, self-humilia- 
tion, and voluntary ascetic practices. All this is un- 
Pauline enough; but it moved in a direction that 
aroused few protests till the Reformation epoch. 

The means for the forgiveness of sins is the 
divinely instituted rite of baptism, by which "we 
are set free into eternal life. " It can be received but 
once, though a martyr's death constitutes for him an 
exceptional and effective second baptism; and hence 
so precious a remedy for sin is not to be lightly used. 
To Tertullian' s thinking, children and the unmarried 
should postpone it, because not yet fixed in char- 
acter.3 This delay of baptism, in order that its 
benefit might extinguish as large an amount of one's 
total accumulation of sins as possible, was nothing 

I Repentance, chap. vi. * Baptism, chap. xx. 

3 Ibid., passim. - 



34 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

peculiar to Tertullian, and had a curious illustra- 
tion, to mention a single instance, in the case, a 
century later, of the emperor Constantine, who 
postponed the rite till his last illness. 

But sins are committed after baptism; and the 
attitude of the church toward those of a heinous 
nature was changing in Tertullian' s time, and with 
it the conception of what the church itself is. From 
New Testament days the church had been looked 
upon as a company of actual disciples of Christ — 
as ''saints," though still imperfect — and some sins 
were so bad as to bar out the sinner from it forever.' 
Murder, apostasy, and adultery were looked upon 
as such offenses; and TertulHan clearly states the 
distinction between venial and deadly sins which 
was thus implied.^ For severe sins, not of the un- 
forgivable category, however, God had provided 
a remedy through public confession, which Tertul- 
lian calls a "second reserve of aid against hell''^ — 
baptism being the first ; but, like baptism, it was to 
be used once only; it was the last hope. Whether 
the church had any hope to offer to grievous sinners, 
or to those who had exhausted their repentance, 
was in dispute in Tertullian' s time. He himself 
seems in his earlier period to have inclined to the 
milder view that God might have some mercy even 

1 1 John 5:16; Hebrews 6:4-6; 10:26. 
3 Modesty, chap. ii. 
3 Repentance, chap. xii. 



TERTULLIAN 35 

for great offenses;^ but his Montanistic rigor in later 
life disposed him to the earlier severity. TertuUian's 
final tract, On Modesty, was a biting reproof to 
Bishop Calixtus of Rome (217/8-222/3) who by his 
own fiat had declared his willingness to treat adultery 
and fornication as forgivable sins, after which the 
repentant offender could be restored to church fellow- 
ship. 

This high-handed act of the Bishop of Rome 
was but the logical outcome of the feeling that had 
been growing in the church that the officers of the 
congregation — above all its bishop — were its organs 
in judging and pronouncing censure and restoration. 
In Pauline times the right of the whole congregation, 
it came naturally to be exercised through the executive 
officers. But Calixtus' removal of these offenses 
from the Hst of the unforgivable implied a change 
in the original theory of the church itself — it is no 
longer viewed as a household of " saints, " but as an 
agency for salvation. Calixtus himself likened it to 
Noah's Ark, full of clean and unclean beasts. The 
two conceptions of the church have persisted, and 
today divide Christendom. Those bodies which 
insist on conscious Christian discipleship as the 
condition of membership represent the older view; 
while those communions, which, like the state 
churches, reckon all who have been baptized as of 
their membership, and require no profession of a 

' Z6*i., chap, viii; written between 198 and 203. 



36 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

''change of heart," stand essentially on the inclusive 
basis which Calixtus expressed. Conservatives, 
like the Montanist TertulHan, might protest; but 
Calixtus undoubtedly, rather than he, represented 
the tendency of the times. His theory of the church 
explains how after the attitude of the Roman govern- 
ment had been changed, a century later, to one of 
favor to Christianity, the population was swept by 
the thousand into at least nominal membership in 
the church. 

In one very important theological doctrine 
Tertullian coined and gave significance to many of 
the later phrases employed in its discussion — that of 
the Trinity. The word itself he brought into its 
present use. Such terms as one "substance," in 
which the Father, Son, and Spirit alike share, as 
well as the clear distinction between the divine and 
the human in Christ — who, to him, is God and man, 
joined in one person without confusion — he wrought 
out, largely by the light afforded by Stoic philosophy, 
for, in spite of his contempt for philosophy, he made 
use of it when he chose. His late treatise Against 
Praxeas, written between 213 and 218, was the 
clearest exposition of the "Logos" Christology that 
had yet appeared, and not only gave a fixed content 
to many of the Latin terms he employed, but in 
many respects anticipated the Nicene decision of a 
century later in its formulation of the doctrine of 
the Trinity. 



TERTULLIAN 37 

Possibly the best illustration, however, of Tertul- 
lian's fiery nature, his mastery of invective, and no 
less of the revolt of the Christians of his day from the 
brutalizing public spectacles by which the heathen 
population was amused and degraded, and of their 
confidence in the coming triumph of the Kingdom of 
God, may be drawn from a pastoral denunciation, 
written before he became a Montanist. The 
amusements of his day in the theater were often 
grossly licentious, while those of the gladiatorial 
amphitheater were cruel in the extreme. Both ap- 
pealed to the crudest and lowest passions of human 
nature. Neither was, in TertuUian's judgment, fit 
for Christian eyes. But he went much farther than 
mere criticism. He was evidently goaded by heathen 
taunts. Over against the temporary spectacles of 
the present he placed the vivid realities of a day 
of judgment, already discerned by faith. It is, 
harshly and unsympathetically indeed, an exhibition 
of that "other-worldliness" with which these de- 
spised Christians comforted themselves amid the 
sensuality, cruelty, and hostility about them. It 
speaks the fierce longing, natural to the human 
heart, for a day of vengeance on their enemies. 

What^ a spectacle is that fast-approaching advent of our 
Lord, now owned by all, now highly exalted, now a triumphant 
One! What that exultation of the angelic hosts! What the 
glory of the rising saints! What the kingdom of the just 

' De spectacuUsxxx, chap. . 



38 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

thereafter! What the city New Jerusalem 1 Yes, and there 
are other sights: that last day of judgment, with its everlasting 
issues; that day unlooked for by the nations, the theme of 
their derision, when the world hoary with age and all its many 
products shall be consumed in one great flame ! How vast a 
spectacle then bursts upon the eye! What then excites my 
admiration? What my derision? Which sight gives me 
joy? Which rouses me to exultation? — as I see so many 
illustrious monarchs, whose reception into the heavens was 
publicly announced,^ groaning now in the lowest darkness 
with great Jove himself, and those, too, who bore witness of 
their exaltation; governors of provinces, too, who persecuted 
the Christian name, in fires more fierce than those with which 
in the days of their pride they raged against the followers of 
Christ. What world's wise men besides, the very philoso- 
phers .... now covered with shame before the poor deluded 
ones, as one fire consumes them! Poets, also, trembling not 
before the judgment-seat of Rhadamanthus or Minos, but 
of the unexpected Christ! I shall have a better opportunity 
then of hearing the tragedians, louder-voiced in their own 
calamity; of viewing the play-actors, much more "dissolute" 
in the dissolving flame; of looking upon the charioteer, all 
glowing in his chariot of fire; of beholding the wrestlers, not 
in their gymnasia, but tossing in the fiery billows; unless even 
then I shall not care to attend to such ministers of sin, in my 
eager wish rather to fix a gaze insatiable on those whose fury 
vented itself against the Lord. "This," I shall say, .... 
"This is He whom you purchased from Judas! This is He 
whom you struck with reed and fist, whom you contemptu- 
ously spat upon, to whom you gave gall and vinegar to drink! " 
.... What quaestor or priest in his munificence' will bestow 
on you the favor of seeing and exulting in such things as these ? 

1 Alluding to the deification of deceased emperors. 

2 I. e., givers of public gladiatorial and theatrical shows. 



TERTULLIAN 39 

And yet even now we in a measure have them by faith in the 
picturings of imagination. 

There is much more of the joy of future triumph 
than of Christian charity in this vivid picture; but 
it shows us the strength of the hope in which Ter- 
tullian walked and did his strenuous work. 

QUESTIONS 

1. What were the general tendencies manifest in the 
church at the close of the second century ? 

2. Were they wholly an evil ? 

3. What value was placed on the churches founded by 
the apostles ? Why ? 

4. What was the significance of Irenaeus ? 

5. What reaction did Montanism represent? Why was 
it natural ? Its exaggerations ? 

6. What was Tertullian's career ? 

7. What was Tertullian's significance in the development 
of a Latin Christian literature? The characteristics of his 
style ? His writings ? 

8. What was Tertullian's conception of the relations of 
Christianity to philosophy ? 

9. How far should a Christian seek truth? Where can 
he find it ? 

10. What emphasis does Tertullian lay on sin and grace ? 

11. What was the value attached to baptism in his day? 

12. What two theories of the church were then in 
contest ? 

13. What was Tertullian's contribution to the doctrine of 
the Trinity? 

14. How did he triumph over present ills in the hope of the 
coming of Christ in judgment ? 



40 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

ADDITIONAL READING 
F. W. Farrar, Lives of the Fathers (New York, 1889), I, 118- 

84. 
Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (New York, 

1889), II, 818-34. 
A. H. Newman, A Manual of Church History (Philadelphia, 

1900), I, 257-65. 



ATHANASIUS 



Ill 

ATHANASIUS 

The epoch from the death of TertuUian to the rise 
into prominence of Athanasius — practically a cen- 
tury — ^was one of tremendous changes in the Chris- 
tian church. It had to pass through the two greatest 
persecutions which it experienced, that under Decius, 
250, which was renewed from 257 to 260 by Valerian, 
and that begun in 303 by Diocletian. These perse- 
cutions were what none had been before. They 
were systematic, extensive, and persistent attempts to 
crush out Christianity by men of principle who were 
convinced that the evils from which the Empire suffered 
were due to the refusal of Christians to worship the 
old gods under whom these persecutors believed 
that Rome had grown great. They involved many 
martyrdoms. They led to thousands of denials of 
the faith. When those who in their terror had ab- 
jured their faith sought readmission to the church, 
great divisions arose as to the course to be pursued. 
A considerable party, the Novatian at Rome after 
the Decian persecution, and that of the Donatists in 
Africa after that of Diocletian, would, in accordance 
with the older rigor, bar them from the church; but 
the majority in each instance favored their read- 
mission, if repentant, and thus a second class of 

43 



44 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

offenses was removed from the list of unforgivable 
sins.' 

In spite of these fearful trials, however, the church 
grew mightily, especially as it was favored by almost 
absolute peace between the persecutions. By the 
close of the third century it was vastly more numer- 
ous than in the days of Tertullian. Moreover, 
Christianity, in the third century, was extending 
rapidly into the higher classes of society. It was 
gaining intensively as well as extensively; at the 
same time its exclusiveness was breaking down; 
and it was, undoubtedly, making many compromises 
with the world that the first or even the second 
century would have rejected. Though average 
Christian morality was less exacting, the ascetic life 
was increasingly looked upon as the ideal, and a 
double standard of Christian living was growing up 
that was to have influence for centuries — in fact in 
some branches of the church to the present day. 
While the requirements binding on the ordinary 
Christian were comparatively low, he who would 
lead the holier life must be much more strenuous. 
The way was thus preparing for demands upon the 
clergy not required of the ordinary believer, and for 
the rise of monasticism, the rapid spread of which 
was to be such a feature of the fourth century. The 
combined influence of heathen worship and of Old 

I The first was that of unchastity under Calixtus. See ante, 
P- 35- 



ATHANASiUS 45 

Testament example had changed the conception of 
the ministry into a priesthood; and, by the middle 
of the third century, the Lord's Supper was looked 
upon, well-nigh universally, as a sacrifice made by 
the priest to God — the mass. It had become, at 
least a century earlier than that, the central and 
most sacred part of the service. By the middle of the 
third century, also, the importance always attached 
to the great churches of the capital cities, especially 
those of apostolic association, was giving them a 
metropolitan authority over their districts. This 
was notably the case with Rome, Antioch, and Alex- 
andria, whose bishops were regarded as the chief 
men in the Christian church. To such a writer as 
Cyprian, bishop of Carthage from 248 or 249 to his 
martyrdom in 258, salvation outside the visible 
church is impossible, and that church is built on the 
unity of its bishops, of whom the highest in honor is 
the bishop of Rome. The church was thus a close- 
knit, visible imperium in imperio. 

During the third century, also, theology took on 
a notable development, especially in the school of 
Alexandria, under Clement of Alexandria, who 
flourished in the last decade of the second century 
and the first years of the third ; and especially under 
his great pupil, Origen, who labored as a teacher 
and even more as a writer from 203 to his death in 
251. In Origen the oriental church had its greatest 
theologian, and Christianity as a whole one of its pro- 



46 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

foundest interpreters. In absolute opposition to 
Tertullian he viewed philosophy as a true guide in 
the development and systematizing of the simple 
elements of the popular creed which embodied the 
Christian revelation ; and by its means he constructed 
an immense edifice of speculation which profoundly 
influenced subsequent thought and may be said to 
have completed the union of Christian truth with the 
best that the ancient Greek civilization had to offer 
into one intellectually imposing system. It was a 
marvelous interpretation of Christianity in the light 
of the knowledge of that epoch ; but the process has 
to be repeated with every advance of knowledge, and 
Origen's work was so fully the creation of his own 
age that its value is relatively slight for our own. 
It dominated the theological thought of the oriental 
church in the centuries that immediately succeeded 
him, however; though the lesser men who followed 
him were inclined to judge him more heretical than 
orthodox. 

Greatest of all external changes in the fortunes 
of Christianity were its recognition by the state, the 
consequent cessation of all serious opposition, and 
the positive and powerful aid of the imperial govern- 
ment which came to it in the second decade of the 
fourth century. The proportion of Christians to 
the total population of the Empire is impossible 
of estimation. They were very unequally distrib- 
uted in its various provinces. But in the central 



ATHANASIUS 47 

provinces which possessed political leadership the 
church was undoubtedly very strong, and the perse- 
cution begun by Diocletian not only failed to crush 
it, but showed by the popular apathy that the old 
opposition to Christianity had largely vanished. 
The church was a political force which a clever politi- 
cian, especially one in some degree of sympathy with 
its principles, could use in a struggle to obtain mastery 
of the Roman world. Such a far-sighted politician 
was Constantine, and his victory over his rival 
Maxentius, just outside of Rome in October, 312, 
to w^hich he had marched as a Christian champion, 
and with soldiers bearing the symbol of the cross, was 
followed at the beginning of 313 by the publication 
at Milan, of a joint edict by Constantine and Licinius, 
the ruler of a large part of the East and then Con- 
stantine's supporter. By this edict universal tolera- 
tion was granted. It was no exclusive establishment 
of Christianity, but it granted to Christians full 
rights; and the hearty personal support which Chris- 
tians received from Constantine made Christianity 
practically the most favored religion. By 324 
Constantine was sole ruler of the Empire. His 
legislation constantly favored the church, and its 
numbers now grew enormously with the incoming, 
not merely of genuine converts, but of that great 
class which always desires to be on the winning side. 
To Constantine' s statesman-like mind the support 
of Christianity seems to have appeared the comple- 



48 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

tion of the great process of unification which had 
been working for centuries in the Empire. It had 
long had one law, one citizenship, and, in theory at 
least, one ruler. It was but a further step in the 
same direction that it should have one religion. 

This unity was at once threatened by a serious 
dispute in the church itself, the focus of which was 
Alexandria, the largest city of Egypt, though the 
roots of the quarrel were ancient, and its ramifica- 
tions widespread. It had to do with the most funda- 
mental problem of Christianity — the nature of Christ 
himself. The first disciples had recognized in Christ 
a revelation of God, without asking much about his 
relations to the Father. Matthew's Gospel records 
his declaration that "no man knoweth the Son but 
the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father 
save the Son."^ The three earliest evangeHsts 
show that His claim to forgive sins was regarded by 
those who heard him as an exercise of divine author- 
ity.^ Luke shows that he held himself superior to 
the most sacred parts of that Jewish law which his 
contemporaries believed to be God-given. ^ Paul 
views prayer to Him as a universal Christian prac- 
tice.4 But the need of explanation of his divinity 
was early felt; and the New Testament presents 
three interpretations, not necessarily mutually exclu- 

I Matt. 11:27. 

a Matt. 9:2, 3; Mark 2:5-7; L^l^e 5:20-24. 

3 Luke 6:5. 4 1 Cor. 1:2. 



ATHANASIUS 49 

sive, but still explanations of the how of the great 
fact which the early disciples experienced — his en- 
dowment with the divine Spirit/ his virgin birth, ^ 
and his pre-existence.^ These were not philosophi- 
cal interpretations, however, and the second century 
was busy with its speculations. Gnosticism, as we 
have seen, had its theories. In the church itself, 
the "Logos" Christology, which looked upon Christ 
as the personal embodiment of the divine activity 
in the world, flowing out from God, one with him, yet 
in some real sense distinct from the Father — the 
''Word" — had the largest following. There were, 
however, not a few in the second and third centuries 
who rejected the Logos Christology, and were 
called " Monarchians. " Of these some insisted 
that there was no real distinction between Christ 
and the Father, and that the Father suffered on the 
cross. Such was Sabellius, who flourished at Rome 
from about 215, and taught that the Father, Son, 
and Spirit were but various forms in which the one 
God had manifested himself. Other Monarchians 
viewed Christ simply as one peculiarly filled vv^ith the 
Spirit of God, and hence Son of God by adop- 
tion. But, thanks to the work of TertulHan, of 
Novatian at Rome {ca. 251), and of the Roman 
bishop, Dionysius, {ca. 260), the Logos doctrine, and 

I E. g., Mark 1:9-12. 

a E. g., Matt. 1 : 18-25; Luke i : 34, 35. 

3 E. g., John 1:1; 001.1:15-17. 



so GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

the conception that Father, Son, and Spirit, while 
one in substance, were yet distinct in person — a real 
Trinity — won practically complete control of the 
West. The East was not so united. It was far 
deeper and more speculative in its thought than the 
West, where the primary interests, as befitted the 
Latin spirit, were practical. 

But within the victorious Logos Christology it 
was possible to hold at least two views as to Christ's 
relations to the Father, and out of these the great con- 
troversy was to come. One of them was championed 
by Arius, probably a Libian by birth, who had been 
trained in Antioch, and who when he comes to prom- 
inence in the controversy was well on in years, and 
in high repute as pastor of the church called Baucalis 
in the Egyptian capital, Alexandria. To Arius' 
thinking Christ is the highest of all created beings. 
The chief of all creatures, he is still a creature; and, 
as compared with God who made him, inferior, 
limited, and secondary. Though God's agent in 
creating the world, and therefore earlier than it, 
he was not eternal. "There was when he was 
not." In his birth on earth this secondary God 
took to himself merely a human body, of which 
he constituted the soul. Christ was, therefore, 
to Arius, neither fully God nor perfect man, 
but a being intermediate between the two. The 
view was essentially polytheistic, and asserted 
the existence of two Gods — one high, perfect, 



ATHANASIUS Si 

and remote, the other near, created, limited, and 
inferior. 

These opinions were in opposition to those of 
Arius' ecclesiastical superior, Alexander, bishop of 
Alexandria from 311 to 326, who represented the 
other interpretation to which reference has been 
made. How fully Alexander had worked out his 
own views it is difficult to say; but it is plain that he 
emphasized the unity of Christ with the Father. 
Apparently Arius criticized his position publicly 
about 318; and, about 320, Alexander called a 
synod by which Arius was excommunicated. Far 
from accepting this condemnation, Arius found 
support, notably in Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, 
the ablest politician in the eastern episcopate, and in 
Palestine. The quarrel at once assumed large 
proportions, and Constantine, whose political ideals 
determined his religious policy, and whose prime 
thought was unity in church and state, found him- 
self confronted by a bitter dispute in the church to 
which he had so recently given freedom. After 
trying in vain to bring Arius and Alexander to agree- 
ment through the agency of his ecclesiastical adviser, 
Hosius, bishop of Cordova in Spain, the puzzled 
emperor now called the first general council of the 
church to meet in Nicaea, near Constantinople, in 
^3,y, 325. Local synods had been frequently held 
since the Montanist dispute raged in Asia Minor in 
the latter half of the second century; but now for 



52 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

the first time the whole church was invited — and 
invited by the head of the Roman Empire — to send 
its bishops for deliberation. About three hundred 
answered the call. Entertained at imperial expense, 
and enjoying the presence and largely the guidance 
of the emperor himself, it was indeed a splendid 
gathering, and it has lived in tradition as the most 
sacred of all the councils of the church. 

Though professedly a deliberative body, the 
council was largely determined in its action by the 
emperor, probably less by his direct intervention, 
though that was exercised, than by the natural 
glamor of his presence in a body representative of 
a church which had so recently come forth from 
persecution largely through his aid. Constantine's 
policy was simple. He was no expert theologian. 
He wished peace and unity. He saw that the 
majority of the council, which was almost wholly 
from the eastern portion of the Empire, were un- 
learned men who had no definite convictions on the 
more difficult aspects of the question at issue, and 
therefore would be swayed by one or the other of the 
parties to which the question was vital, that of Arius 
and Eusebius of Nicomedia, or that of Alexander. 
His own training in the western portion of the 
Empire, and the views of his trusted friend, Bishop 
Hosius of Cordova, inclined him to the side of Alex- 
ander, which accorded with the feeling of the West 
generally. Constantine threw the weight of his 



ATHANASIUS 53 

influence against Arius, who was promptly con- 
demned. The creed of the church of Caesarea in 
Palestine was adopted with the insertion of the anti- 
Arian declarations that Christ is "of the substance 
of the Father," "begotten not made, of one sub- 
stance (ofioova-iov) with the Father." The Greek 
word just quoted became henceforth the battle-flag 
of the Nicene faith. The powerful influence of 
Constantine, coupled with threats of banishment, 
secured the signatures of all bishops save two; and 
the council dissolved, having, it was believed, given 
the desired peace to the church. 

The majority at Nicaea had, however, been sur- 
prised and led rather than convinced. The real 
battle was after rather than at the council. The 
council was brief, the battle lasted more than half 
a century. Its hero was Athanasius, to whose 
efforts the permanent victory of the Nicene faith 
was primarily due. Born, probably in Alexandria, 
about 293, he became a deacon under Bishop xAlex- 
ander, and that prelate's hearty supporter, possibly 
his amanuensis. He was present in Nicaea during 
the council, though of course, being not yet a bishop, 
he was not one of its official members. While his 
influence there, such as it was, was exercised in favor 
of the result reached, it was in no sense a deciding 
factor. But, with Athanasius' promotion to the 
see of Alexandria on the death of Alexander, in 326, 
his leadership became incontestible, and till his own 



54 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

demise, in 373, he was the foremost figure in the 
struggle. A thinker of clearness, rather than an 
original theologian, he adopted the Nicene decision 
as his own and was admirably fitted to represent a 
great party. His enthusiasm, his steadfastness of 
purpose, his unbending and high-minded resolution 
to yield nothing, made him the commanding leader 
of his century and a permanent force in the history 
of Christian thought. 

Athanasius' impulse was far more rehgious than 
philosophical. To his thinking, Christ is the full 
manifestation of the one God, eternal, subordinate 
in office to the Father, yet forever one with him in 
nature. In the incarnation the one God was united 
with a perfect and complete manhood, so that Christ 
is at the same time fully God and fully man. There 
is no far-off God, remote from the world which he 
has made, but God himself has revealed himself in 
the incarnation to men. 

These may seem remote matters of speculation; 
but in the existent state of Christian thought they 
were not. The ancient world was in real danger of 
putting God a great way off, of so emphasizing his 
transcendence as to separate him by a vast gulf from 
his creatures. That Arius did; and with many the 
Logos Christology, which makes Christ a divine 
agent of the one God, had that effect in spite of its 
assertion of Christ's divine character. To Athana- 
sius the "Son" rather than the Logos or "Word" 



ATHANASIUS 55 

was always Christ's chief title. Only as God is 
shown to be active, sympathizing with man's need, 
sacrificing himself for man's sins, really uniting men 
to himself, present in his world, is a real salvation 
possible. So Athanasius conceived the matter ; and 
he was right, however completely our modern age 
has discarded the philosophic garb of that time in 
which he clothed his thoughts. His fundamental 
contention is forever true. No intermediate being, 
however gifted, could really reveal God to men or 
effect that reconciliation and union of men with 
God by which alone salvation is possible. 

Athanasius entered on his bishopric in 326. 
There was need for his firmness at once. The de- 
feated party at Nicaea had an able leader in the 
politically skilful Eusebius of Nicomedia, who soon 
won favor with Constantine. To many of those who 
had belonged to the great undecided middle body 
of the council the result arrived at in Nicaea seemed 
one-sided and Sabellian. A reaction soon set in. 
By Eusebius' maneuvers the emperor was persuaded 
that Arius was not as bad as he had been painted. 
Constantine did not in any way become an Arian; 
but Arius now laid before him a brief and vague 
confession of faith that seemed to the un theological 
mind of the emperor not only orthodox but indicative 
of a willingness to end the dispute. What seemed 
enough to the emperor, Constantine naturally thought 
ought to satisfy Athanasius; and as Athanasius still 



56 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

opposed Arius' restoration, Constantine was at last 
persuaded by Eusebius of Nicomedia, though with 
difficulty, that, after all, Athanasius' obstinacy, and 
the tyranny with which he was falsely charged, were 
the roots of the quarrel, and that a period of exile 
would bring him to terms. So Constantine banished 
Athanasius to Trier, in Germany, late in 335; and 
so successful were Arius' friends that he was about 
to be restored to the church when he died in ^^6. 

Constantine' s own demise, in 337, found Athana- 
sius still in exile, and that death brought a marked 
strengthening of the anti-Athanasian party. The 
great emperor had tried in an unsuccessful way to 
make peace. Of his sons, Constantius, who received 
the eastern portion of the Empire, was under the 
influence of Eusebius of Nicomedia, whom he made 
bishop of his capital, Constantinople, in 338. To 
Constantine II and to Constans came the rulership 
of the West, which the death of Constantine II, in 
340, soon placed wholly in Constans' hands. UnHke 
his brother, Constantius, Constans favored Athana- 
sius, and, like the region of which he was the ruler, 
supported the Nicene decision. The reign of the 
three emperors was begun, however, by the recall of 
all who had been banished by Constantine, and thus, 
before the end of 337, Athanasius was once more in 
friendly Alexandria. His peace was not long undis- 
turbed, however. Early in 339, a synod of his 
enemies at Antioch ordered his deposition. He 



ATHANASIUS 57 

was driven by force from Alexandria, and fled to 
Rome, a new bishop was put in his place, and his 
second exile, which was to last till October, 346, was 
begun. 

Then followed a period of great interest, not merely 
in the life of Athanasius, but of high importance in 
the development of the papacy as well as in the 
progress of the Nicene struggle. Both the Eusebian 
party and Athanasius appealed to Bishop Julius of 
Rome (337-52), an exceedingly skilful and states- 
man-like pontiff, who saw in the situation an oppor- 
tunity not merely to aid the side which he believed 
right but to advance papal authority. By Julius, 
Athanasius was heartily welcomed and declared 
orthodox. The situation between Rome and Con- 
stantinople was strained in the extreme; but now 
the emperor Constans, largely at the insistence of 
the aged Hosius of Cordova, persuaded his brother 
Constantius to join with him in the summons of a 
new designedly general council, to meet in 343 at 
Sardica, now Sofia in Bulgaria. On its assembly 
it was evident that the western bishops, in sym- 
pathy with Nicene views, were in the majority, and 
the Eusebian party therefore withdrew in anger 
because Athanasius and his friends who were present 
were received in fellowship by that majority. On 
the departure of the Eusebians, the remaining 
bishops pronounced in favor of Athanasius,^and, in a 
famous series of rules, authorized the Bishop of 



58 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

Rome, when appealed to by bishops who deemed 
themselves unjustly deposed, to examine into the 
cases and cause them to be reopened. This was of 
course a party decision, unrecognized by the Euse- 
bians, and favorable to Athanasius and his friends; 
but it became a precedent for many later papal 
claims. 

Unfavorable as the situation seemed, a change 
came in Athanasius' favor, when, in 346, Constantius, 
moved by Constans' urgency, recalled him to Alex- 
andria. The second exile was ended, and for ten 
years Athanasius was in possession of his bishopric. 
But his hardest trial was yet to come. The death of 
the friendly Constans in 350 left Constantius sole 
master of the Roman world, and with his exclusive 
rulership the anti-Nicene party which he favored was 
of course strengthened. By 355 the emperor and 
his ecclesiastical friends were so dominant in the 
West that at a great synod held in Milan in Italy 
Athanasius and his supporters were condemned 
by the western bishops there gathered; and those 
who then or soon after opposed this forced decision, 
like Bishop Liberius of Rome and other leaders of 
the West, were sent into exile. Soldiers were em- 
ployed to seize Athanasius in Alexandria. He 
escaped with difficulty in February, 356, but he was 
now an Egyptian national hero, and in this third 
exile (356-62) found protection in defiance of the 
imperial power in the deserts of his native land. 



ATHANASIUS 59 

Much of this protection came from the monks, for 
monasticism was growing rapidly in Egypt, and 
found in Athanasius its first eager supporter in high 
ecclesiastical position, and its earnest advocate. 

The defeat of the Nicene party, of which Athana- 
sius was the head, seemed now complete; but the 
anti-Nicene opposition was made up of very diverse 
elements, and with its victory it divided into factions. 
The old middle party of Eusebius, who had died in 
341, now developed a conservative wing that, while 
not ready to say with the Nicene creed that Christ 
was of one substance with the Father, would yet 
approach it far enough to declare that they were of 
the same attributes {6fjLOLov<nov) . Its radical wing, 
on the other hand, asserted the old Arian position 
that Christ was of other substance than the Father. 
Constantius tried to compromise by rejecting all 
forms of the word "substance" as unscriptural, and 
holding that Christ is "like" the Father, "in all 
things as the Scriptures teach," which was really 
avoiding the questions at issue; but the result was 
that the Athanasians and the conservative Eusebians 
came constantly nearer together, and the Athana- 
sian cause was greatly strengthened by these divi- 
sions of its opponents. 

In 361 the emperor Constantius died, and was 
succeeded by the last heathen that sat on the Roman 
throne, Julian, misnamed "the Apostate." Anxious 
to aid heathenism by increasing the quarrels of 



6o GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

Christians, Julian called home all banished bishops; 
and in 362, Athanasius was once more in Alexandria. 
But before the year was out, angered by Athanasius' 
opposition to heathenism, Julian sent him into his 
fourth exile, which lasted this time till 364, and was 
spent, as his third had been, under the protection of 
his Egyptian sympathizers. 

On Julian's early death in 363, Christian emperors 
succeeded, though till the advent of Theodosius, in 
379, they were, like Constantius, anti-Nicene in 
sympathies. But Athanasius' party constantly grew, 
aided as it was by powerful men of a younger genera- 
tion, notably Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and 
Gregory of Nazianzen. A fifth exile came to the 
aged Athanasius for a few weeks, late in 365, when 
the emperor Valens banished all bishops whom 
Constantius had driven from their sees. But from 
366 to his death on May 7, 373, at the age of about 
eighty, Athanasius remained in quiet possession of 
the bishopric which he had so long held, and from 
which he had been so often expelled. The full 
triumph of his cause he did not live to see. That 
was not to come till the Spanish-born emperor 
Theodosius put all the weight of imperial politics 
as firmly and as ruthlessly on the Nicene side, as 
ever Constantius had supported its opponents. 
But even his power could not have won the ground 
permanently for the Nicene cause had it not been 
for the long work of Athanasius. The courage, 



ATHANASIUS 6i 

persistence, and conviction with which he had fought 
his battle won victory in the end. Whether Athana- 
sius' spirit was always that of his Lord may well 
be doubted, but none can question his heroism, or 
the depth of the religious conviction which animated 
him in the long struggle. It is no less evident that 
the interference of the Christian emperors was a 
source of great evil to the church. In the existing 
state of the Empire that interference was unavoid- 
able, but it made every theological question a political 
problem, it led to the use of very carnal weapons 
of controversy, and it turned Christian interest 
largely from matters of life and conduct to bitter 
wranglings over points of doctrine. Yet in the large 
retrospect we may be grateful that Athanasius did 
his work so well, and that the outcome of the struggle 
was what it was. 

QUESTIONS 

1. When were the great persecutions and what problems 
did they raise ? 

2. What changes in the conceptions of Christian life and 
worship took place in the third century ? 

3. Who was Origen and what was his significance ? 

4. How did Constantine come to embrace Christianity 
and what was the effect of his conversion ? 

5. With what great dispute was Constantine confronted ? 

6. What were some of the views regarding Christ's rela- 
tion to the Father which had been previously held in the 
church ? 

7. Who was Arius, and what were his views ? 



62 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

8. How did Arius and Alexander of Alexandria differ ? 

9. What was the occasion and significance of the Council 
of Nicaea ? Did it end the dispute ? 

10. What was the early history of Athanasius? Why did 
the controversy seem to him of great religious significance ? 

11. How did Eusebius of Nicomedia regard the result 
at Nicaea ? What was the position and what the influence of 
the emperor Constantius ? 

12. How many times was Athanasius exiled? Some of 
the circumstances ? 

13. What was the significance of the Council of Sardica ? 

14. What was the outcome of the Nicene struggle? In 
how far and how did Athanasius contribute to the result? 

ADDITIONAL READING 
F. W. Farrar, Lives of the Fathers (New York, 1889), I, 331- 

425. 
Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (New York, 

1884), III, 616-88, 884-93. 
H. M. Gwatkin, The Arian Controversy (New York, no date) 

("Epochs of Church History" Series). 



AUGUSTINE 



IV 
AUGUSTINE 

The contests in which Athanasius was engaged, 
though arousing interest in the western portions of 
the Empire, and involving its leaders, were primarily 
eastern. The western mind was more practical, thT 
eastern more speculative. In the East the discus- 
sions begun regarding the person of Christ long con- 
tinued. The Nicene view of divinity united to 
humanity was everywhere accepted; but, granted 
that, the further question arose as to how the divine 
and the human were joined in Christ's person. As 
the result of the discussion of this problem in em- 
bittered quarrels, it was decreed by the Council 
in Chalcedon, near Constantinople, in 451, that 
Christ is "known in two natures, without confusion, 
without conversion, without severance, and without 
division," that is, that in the one person of Our 
Lord two complete natures, one human, the other 
divine, are united. Curiously enough, though inter- 
est in the debate was primarily eastern, the words of 
the Chalcedonian decision were borrowed almost 
wholly from a letter of the greatest of the early 
Roman bishops, Leo I (440-61). 

With this decision the East exhausted about all 
that it had to contribute to the development of 

65 



^ 



66 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

Christian doctrine. That this was the case was 
largely due to its conception of the nature of salvation. 
As already pointed out in speaking of Irenaeus,^ it 
viewed fallen man as having lost his unity with God, 
1/^ and as hence incapable of a joyful immortality. 
Only by the union of God with men was a true im- 
mortality possible for the Christian. Hence the 
stress which the East laid on the real union of God 
and man in Christ. Only by that union was spiritual 
death overcome and life and happy immortality 
brought to light. Emphasizing thus the victory 
over death as the prime thing in salvation, the East 
had little sense of sin and of its consequent guilt. 
The question of how guilty men might be made 
right with God had comparatively Httle interest for 
the East. Its problem was how mortal men might 
be made immortal. 

To the western mind the problem of guilt was the 
more pressing. Its prime interest was how sinful 
men could be made righteous, and the consequences 
of their sins overcome. Hence the West showed an 
interest, never developed in the East, in the nature 
of man and the way of his reconciliation with God. 
This enabled the West to make a real advance in 
theology over the East, and gave its thinking a prac- 
tical valuej consonant with the legal and practical, 
but relatively unspeculative, western mind. It has 
its highest illustration in the greatest of western 

I AniCt P- 26. 



AUGUSTINE 67 

theologians — probably the greatest theologian of all 
the early church — Augustine. 

Of all the leaders of the ancient church, we know 
Augustine most fully. Thanks to the facts recorded 
in his writings, especially in his Confessions and 
Retractions, and to a Life written by his intimate 
friend, Bishop Possidius of Calama, we are able to 
follow his spiritual development and his contro- 
versies in all their phases, to know the circumstances 
of his conversion, and to appreciate his relations to 
his age. We can give the exact dates of his birth 
and death — a definiteness of knowledge not to be at- 
tained regarding any other great character of the early 
church. We can follow most of his experiences and 
become acquainted with his friends and opponents. 

Augustine was born on November 13, 354, under" 
the reign of Constantius, in Tagaste, a little town in 
what was then the flourishing North African province 
of Numidia, in the region now known as Algeria. 
His father, Patricius, was an easy-going heathen of 
good position, but small property; his mother, 
Monnica, a Christian of eager ambition for her son, 
who had the highest reverence for her, although she 
was in his younger years of rather external and 
superficial piety. As he was a boy of promise, the 
family, in spite of its limited resources, was deter- 
mined to give Augustine the best education that the 
time afforded, and, accordingly, he was sent to school 
first in the neighboring Madaura, and then in the 



68 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

North African capital, Carthage, where Tertullian 
and Cyprian had labored. Here, in Carthage, if 
not earlier, he gave way to the sensual temptations 
which the age and heathen traditions pressed upon 
him; but though he paints his lapses in the most 
abhorrent colors in the pitiless self-condemnation of 
the Confessions^ they did not wholly dominate him, 
and he acquired repute as a brilliant and earnest 
student. Here at Carthage, when about seventeen, 
he entered into a kind of partial marriage — a rela- 
tion of concubinage then legal and not wholly con- 
demned by the church, but severable at will — to 
which he remained faithful for the next fifteen years, 
and from which a son, Adeodatus, to whom he was 

"' devoted, was early born. Undoubtedly, however, 
sensuality was the form of temptation to which the 
youthful Augustine felt himself most exposed, and 
this defiling experience colored his later conceptions 
of the nature of sin, and marked the depth of the 
degradation from which he felt himself rescued by 
divine grace. 

His higher nature, however, constantly asserted 
itself. A lost treatise of Cicero, the Hortensius, 

^^ which came into his hands when in his nineteenth 
year, convinced him intellectually that truth must be 
the object of his search — a determination that was 
thenceforth masterful in his life. But the old temp- 
tations still assailed, and like Paul,^ though in a 

I Romans 7 : 14-24. 



AUGUSTINE 69 

different way, he felt that two natures, a higher , uJLjU 
and a lower, were struggling in him with varying i'/s.v^.. 
success for the mastery. In this contest he turned 
to the Bible; but as yet it did not speak to his heart. 
To the rhetorical taste of the young student its style 
seemed barbarous, and he now revolted from Chris- 
tianity of which he had been thus far nominally an 
adherent. 

The form of faith to which Augustine now turned 
was Manichaeanism, then widespread, in spite of 
persecution, in the Roman Empire, and one pecu- 
liarly appealing to a man like Augustine, who felt 
two tendencies at warfare within him. Mani, its 
founder, had taught in Persia, and had there met a 
martyr's death by crucifixion in 276 or 277. His 
system combined Zoroastrian, Hindu, Gnostic, and 
Christian elements; the fundamental basis being 
the thought that the universe is the scene of the 
eternal conflict of two powers, the one good, the other 
evil. Man, as we know him, is a mixed product, 
the spiritual part of his nature being made of the 
good element, the physical of the evil. His task is 
therefore to free the good in him from the evil ; and 
this can be accomplished by prayer, but especially 
by abstinence from all the enjoyments of evil, riches, 
lust, wine, meats, handsome houses, and the like. 
The true spiritual Jesus, as with the Gnostics, had 
no material body, and died no real death. His 
purpose was to teach men the way from the kingdom 



70 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

of darkness to that of light. Like the Gnostics, the 
Manichaeans held that much of the New Testament 
is true, but they rejected all in it that seemed to 
imply Christ's real sufferings, and they discarded the 
Old Testament altogether. Their adherents were 
divided into two classes, the " perfect, " who lived a 
strict life of ascetic self-denial, and the "hearers," 
who were still allowed to marry, to trade, and in 
many ways to conform to the world. 

Augustine remained an eager Manichaean for nine 
years, from 374 to 383; but dissatisfaction with 
its teachings at last arose in his mind, especially 
under the influence of the most spiritual of the 
philosophical systems of the ancient world, that of 
neo-Platonism. As a Manichaean, however, he 
taught grammar in his native Tagaste, and rhetoric 
in Carthage, and though inwardly doubting the 
truth of this system, it was at the suggestion of 
Manichaean friends, that he removed to Rome in 
383. Not long after his arrival in the capital he 
secured from the prefect, Symmachus, a professor- 
ship in the State University in Milan (384); and 
thither he was followed by his widowed mother, 
and some of his African friends, for his was always 
an attractive personality. He was now thirty years 
old, in established position in life, and with every 
prospect of worldly success; but he was more than 
ever deeply dissatisfied with his life. He separated 
from his faithful concubine that he might become 



AUGUSTINE 71 

betrothed to a young woman of wealth and posi- 
tion ; but he could not master his sensual nature, and 
the conflict became increasingly distressing to him. 
With his residence in Milan, however, he came un- 
der the powerful preaching of Ambrose, whom he 
first heard as an illustration of pulpit eloquence, but 
whose message soon impressed his soul, and un- 
doubtedly developed into noble fruitage his mother's 
spiritual life. 

Ambrose was one of the most remarkable men of 
the age. The son of a high officer of the government, 
and himself destined for political life, he came to 
Milan as governor of northern Italy, probably in 373, 
and the next year, in spite of his want even of baptism, 
was chosen by the people of the city as their bishop. 
From the first he looked upon the call as that of God. 
No greater administrator, no more effective preacher, 
no more devoted pastor than he was to be found in 
that age. He dared to rebuke the great emperor, 
Theodosius, when that ruler sinned, yet with such 
evident honesty of purpose as not merely to bring 
the imperial offender to repentance but to secure his 
lasting friendship. To be brought in contact with 
such a man as Ambrose was of immense value to the 
inwardly distressed Augustine. 

Yet the immediate occasion of Augustine's con- 
version seems to have been, as so often in Christian 
history, personal example. He consulted Simpli- 
cianus, a friend of Ambrose, who told him of the 



72 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

religious transformation of the rhetorician, Vic- 
torinus, by whose writings Augustine had been 
introduced to neo-Platonism. A fellow-African, 
Pontitianus, described the life of the Egyptian monks 
with its rejection of the temptations of the world. 
Augustine felt a burning sense of shame that these 
unlearned men could win spiritual battles in which 
he, with all his education, felt only defeat. His 
sense of sin and of his own powerlessness was pro- 
foundly stirred; and, as he walked in agony in his 
garden, he heard a child's voice saying, "Take and 
read." Instantly he picked up a New Testament, 
and the words on which his eyes fell were suited 
perhaps above all others to his mood : " Not in rioting 
and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, 
not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh 
to fulfil the lusts thereof."^ As Augustine himself 
recorded, "Instantly, as I reached the end of this 
sentence, it was as if the light of peace was poured 
into my heart, and all the shades of doubt faded 
away."^ 

On the eve of the following Easter, 387, Augus- 
tine, with his son, Adeodatus, and his friend, Alypius, 
was baptized by Ambrose in Milan. A few months 
later he set out for Africa, but on the journey his 
mother died in Ostia, and the narrative of her con- 

I Romans 13 : 13, 14. 

• Confessions, Book VIII, chap. xii. 



AUGUSTINE 73 

versations and her death, as recorded by Augustine, 
is one of the noblest monuments of Christian experi- 
ence.' By the autumn of 388, he was once more 
settled in Tagaste, and about this time the death of 
his son added to the grief already experienced in the 
loss of his mother. Of his experiences till his 
mother's death he wrote, between 397 and 400, a 
most remarkable description in his Confessions — 
an unsurpassed spiritual autobiography, in which he 
endeavored to show the greatness of the divine work 
by which he had been rescued from his sins and 
made one of the children of God. 

Augustine had been greatly impressed, in con- 
nection with his conversion, with monasticism, and 
an opportunity came to him in 391 to share in found- 
ing a monastic establishment in Hippo, now Bona — 
a monastery that was not merely the first in that part 
of Africa, but served also as a ministerial training 
school. Here in Hippo, in 391, by popular insistence 
and against his will, Augustine was ordained a priest; 
and, in 395, on the wish of Bishop Valerius, he was 
chosen assistant bishop of that see. When he suc- 
ceeded to the full bishopric of Hippo is unknown, but 
for thirty-five years, till his death on August 28, 430, 
during the siege of the city by the Vandals, he was 
practically its ecclesiastical head. As an administra- 
tor he was distinguished for his simplicity in food 
and dress, his encouragement of good morals and 

» Ibid.t Book IX, chaps, x and xi. 



74 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

education among the clergy, his advocacy of mo- 
nasticism, and his abilities as a preacher. But his 
fame as a theologian was now widespread throughout 
the Empire, and was to be his most eminent claim to 
remembrance. 

Augustine's abundant discussion touched most of 
the aspects of the theology and philosophy of his age. 
Beyond any other teacher of the ancient church, sub- 
sequent to the apostolic agefhe influenced the religious 
thought of western Christendom not merely through- 
out the Middle Ages but even more powerfully at the 
Reformation when his conceptions of Christian truth 
largely determined the form in which the theology of 
that great revolt was cast./ There were two distinct, 
and to some extent irreconcilable, aspects to his think- 
ing, however, so that if he is the spiritual father of 
Protestant theology, the characteristic contentions of 
mediaeval Catholicism could also find in him their 
most powerful exponent. If his doctrines of grace, 
of sin, and of predestination largely furnished the 
ammunition of the reformers, his conceptions of the 
church, of the sacraments, and of monasticism were 
no less influential upon their Roman predecessors 
and opponents. 

Augustine's chief contests were with his old asso- 
ciates the Manichaeans (388-405) ; against the Dona- 
tists, who, starting as a protest against easy treatment 
of those who had been unfaithful in the Diocletian 
persecution, divided all North Africa into warring 



AUGUSTINE 75 

factions, alike in all other beliefs, but each declaring 
the other no true church (393-420) ; against the Pela- 
gians, of whom more will be said (412-428); and 
against the Arians, especially in his treatise on the 
Trinity of about 416. But as it is impossible to de- 
scribe these contests in any detail in the space at 
command, but three important aspects of Augustine's 
thought will now be mentioned as illustrative of his 
profound influence on his own and subsequent ages. 
Augustine w^orked out his doctrine of the church 
largely in his disputes with the Donatists. Ortho- 
dox as they were in belief, yet opposing the church 
of the Empire, he had to show to his own satisfaction 
that they were not a part of the true church. That 
only is the church, he held, which has faith, hope, and 
love; but love can only be the possession of the one 
visible and universal church. Hence not only could 
there be no real church but the one Catholic body; 
there is no salvation outside of it, for without all the 
three Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love none 
can be saved. The bonds which unite the church, 
the signs which distinguish it visibly, are the sacra- 
ments, which, though possessed by others, are of value 
only in the one Catholic church to which alone the 
name church rightly belongs. To the divine opera- 
tion of the sacraments and the grace conferred by the 
Holy Spirit through them, the holiness of the church 
is due ; and they are divinely placed in the charge of 
the properly ordained clergy. Hence the clergy are 



76 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

the indispensable element in the membership of the 
church. Yet while Augustine thus advocated views of 
the church which were to come to full development in 
mediaeval Roman Catholicism, his own conception of 
its membership or of the sacraments was not always 
clear. The bestowment of grace is not inseparably 
bound to the reception of the sacraments. He spoke 
of the visible church sometimes as a mixed company 
of good and bad ; but he sometimes, also, approached 
the definition of the church as really the good only, 
whom God alone can distinguish in the visible body on 
earth — that is, he was not far at times from that con- 
ception of the invisible church as the only true church 
which was to spring into such power at the Reformation. 
^Augustine's conceptions of sin and grace grew 
largely out of his own experience, and were developed 
in their leading features before the Pelagian contro- 
versy, though that discussion brought them to full 
expression. The Apologists like/fustin Martyr had 
emphasized man's freedom to do right or wrong, and 
that conception had prevailed, especially in the 
Greek-speaking portion of the church/'' Pelagius, a 
British, or less probably an Irish, monk, who had 
lived long in Rome, carried these thoughts to sharper- 
expression. He denied that sin is inherited from 
Adam. Man still has freedom by nature to act 
righteously or sinfully. Nor is death a consequence 
of Adam's transgression. Adam, indeed, introduced 
sin into the world, his corrupting example spread it 



AUGUSTINE 77 

to his posterity. Almost all the human race have 
sinned; but it is possible not to sin, and some have 
not. God predestinates none, save in the sense that 
he foresees who will believe and who will reject his 
gracious influences. His forgiveness comes to all 
who exercise "faith alone;" and it is interesting to 
note that no one between Paul and Luther so empha- 
sized "faith alone" as the condition of salvation as 
did Pelagius. But, once forgiven, man has power 
of himself to live a life pleasing to God, and Pelagius 
makes relatively little of the aid of the Holy Spirit. 
His ideal of the Christian life is rather the Stoic con- 
ception of ascetic self-control. 

All this was contrary to the views which Augus- 
tine's experience had wrought in him. His sense of 
the depth of his sin was profound, and hence his con- 
ception of the greatness of salvation needed was cor- 
respondingly exalted. He felt that nothing less than 
irresistible divine power could have saved him from 
the slough of sin in which he was till his conversion, 
and only constantly inflowing divine grace could 
keep him in the Christian life, the essence of which is 
not Stoic self-control, but love for righteousness in- 
fused by the constant work of the Spirit of God. 
As Augustine studied the Scriptures, especially the 
Pauline epistles, he believed his experience confirmed. 

In Augustine's view all that God has made is in 
itself good. The first man, Adam, was created a 
holy, happy, and harmoniously constituted being. 



78 GREATiMEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

He had the possibility of not sinning, and, had he 
refused to sin, the practice of righteousness would 
have become a habit, and the possibility of not sin- 
ning would have become a moral impossibility to 
sin. Instead, Adam, who had free will, sinned, and 
ruin was the result. The harmony which kept the 
body subject to the soul was broken. The body 
-Asserted itself in passions, of which, to Augustine's 
thinking, the most characteristic is lust. His mental 
faculties were clouded. His vision of God lost. 
His power to do right gone. "In a word, Adam died, 
spiritually; and soon physically. But he was not 
alone in his ruin. On the basis of a mistranslation 
of Romans 5:12, Augustine taught that all the race 
was in Adam and shared his fall. It all became a 
''mass of corruption, " incapable of itself of any good 
act, and deserving, in each of its members from 
earliest infancy to old age, nothing but damnation. 
..'Since man can now do nothing good himself, all 
impulse or power to do good must be the free gift of 
God, must be, that is, a "grace," Out of the mass 
of the fallen race God chooses some to receive grace, 
which comes to them from the work of Christ, 
through the church, and especially through its sacra- 
ments. -AH who receive baptism receive regenerat- 
ing grace. Such grace is irresistible. It gives man 
back his freedom to serve God, though that service 
is imperfect even in the best, and is maintained only 
by the constant incoming of divine aid. Those to 



AUGUSTINE 79 

whom God does not send his grace are lost. Nor 
can any man be sure, even if he now enjoys God's 
grace, that he will be saved. Only he to whom God 
gives the added grace of perseverance, that is, who 
has divine aid to the end of his life, will be redeemed. 
Man, therefore, has no power or worthiness of him- 
self; all his salvation is of God. The principal effect 
of grace, according to Augustine, is not, however, 
forgiveness of sins, though that is one of its conse- 
quences, but the building-up of a righteous character, 
through the infusion of love by the Holy Spirit. That 
character God rewards. He treats it as meritorious 
in us, though its creation is wholly his work. 

About 410 Pelagius, with his disciple, Caelestius, 
came from Rome to North Africa. There Caeles- 
tius tried to secure ordination as a priest; but was 
rejected and his views condemned at a synod in 
Carthage, at which Augustine was not present, in 
411. He then went to the East, whither Pelagius 
had preceded him, and where they had a fairly 
friendly reception. Augustine now came forth as 
their opponent in a strenuous literary warfare, 
reinforced by the efforts of his friends with other 
weapons. In 416 Pelagius was condemned by 
African synods in Carthage and Mileve, and Pope 
Innocent I approved the decision. His successor, 
Zosimus, at first looked leniently on Pelagius and 
Caelestius, but a general rallying of the Augustinian 
forces led to a change of view, and by the spring 



8o GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

of 418, Zosimus was on Augustine's side. In 419 
the Pelagians were banished by the emperor, 
Honorius, and, in 431, Pelagianism was con- 
demned by the General Council of the church 
in Ephesus. Thus Augustine's view triumphed 
officially; but there have never been wanting many 
who have held essentially the position of Pelagius. 
It is easy to see, however, that, though Augustine 
bound the reception of "grace" to membership in 
the visible church, his doctrine that God chooses 
whom he will and gives them power to serve him, 
makes salvation a matter between God and the in- 
dividual soul, and was, therefore, a doctrine capable 
of becoming, as at the Reformation, a tower of 
strength to those who denied that any body of men, 
of whatever claims to be a church, could come be- 
tween the soul and its Maker. 
,^A third characteristic of Augustine, of far-reach- 
ing influence, was his mysticism, or perhaps it is 
better to say his spiritual-mindedness. To him God 
is the end and object of man's love, and even of man's 
existence. "Thou has formed us for thyself, and 
our hearts are restless till they find rest in thee, " he 
exclaims in his Confessions.^ But the world he views 
no less from a spiritual standpoint. The time in 
which he lived was peculiarly an age of apparent 
ruin. The Roman Empire was visibly collapsing. 
Rome itself was captured by the Goths in 410. And 

I Book I, chap. i. 



AUGUSTINE 8i 

the remaining heathen were not tardy with their 
shallow explanation of this apparent downfall of 
civilization. When Rome worshiped the old gods, 
kx«^^ey said, it conquered the world. Now Christianity 
has turned men away from the deities to whom Rome 
owed her strength, and the barbarians plunder the 
city itself. To these criticisms, and to the fears of the 
Christians themselves, Augustine replied in his noble 
City of God, or more truly '* Kingdom of God, " writ- 
ten between 412 and 426, and presenting his spiritual 
philosophy of history. Two kingdoms, one that of 
God, the other that of the world, have existed always 
side by side. The former owes its life to the grace 
of God, the latter is necessitated by man's sin. The 
one is spiritual, the other temporal. While sin exists 
the temporal kingdom has its use in repressing crime 
and maintaining peace; but as the spiritual kingdom 
grows the temporal must diminish. The highest 
illustration of the kingdom of the world was the 
empire of heathen Rome, but its passing is no evil. 
On the contrary, it must decline that the Kingdom 
of God may more and more come. The grandeur 
of this spiritual vision made the City of God the most 
beloved of Augustine's works throughout the early 
Middle Ages. It gave a spiritual interpretation to 
the woes from which the world suffered. The pres- 
ent might be bad, but better is to come. The golden 
age — the Kingdom of God — is in the future, not in 
the fading splendors of a worldly kingdom that could 



\ 
\ 



82 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

but be temporal. Yet, as Augustine practically iden- 
^"tified the Kingdom of God with the visible church, his 
doctrine greatly aided the growth of the conception 
that the church should rule the state which the medi- 
aeval papacy was to carry to such heights. 

The modern world has departed in many respects 
from Augustine, but no man since the apostolic age 
has been more influential as a Christian example or 
as a Christian thinker than he. 

QUESTIONS 

1. How did eastern and western Christianity differ in 
intellectual tendencies ? 

2. How is our knowledge of Augustine greater than our 
acquaintance with most of the leaders of the early church ? 

3. Describe Augustine's early life, his temptations, and his 
ideals. 

4. What was Manichaeanism ? Why did Augustine become 
a Manichaean ? How long was he one ? 

5. Who was Ambrose? 

6. Give an account of Augustine's conversion. Its central 
experience ? 

7. Outline Augustine's later life. 

8. What was the extent of Augustine's influence as a leader 
of Christian thought ? What were his chief controversies ? 

9. What was Augustine's view of the church ? Its defects ? 
Its influence on mediaeval Roman Catholicism ? 

10. What influence had Augustine's experience on his views 
of sin and grace ? 

11. Who was Pelagius and what was his theory of sin and 
salvation? What importance did he attach to justification 
by faith alone ? 

12. What was Augustine's view of the origin of sin? Of 



AUGUSTINE 83 

the relation of men to Adam ? Of the extent of human sin- 
fulness ? 

13. Who, according to Augustine, are saved, and how are 
they saved ? What importance had his views in the Reforma- 
tion age ?. 

14. What influence had Augustine's mysticism? His 
theory of history as set forth in his City of God? Its occasion 
and influence ? 

ADDITIONAL READING 

F. W. Farrar, Lives of the Fathers (New York, 1889), II, 298- 

459- 
Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (New York, 

1884), III, 783-870, 988-1028. 
Joseph McCabe, St. Augustine and His Age (New York, 

1903). 



PATRICK 



V 
PATRICK 

The Christian leaders thus far considered labored 
in the populous cities of the Roman Empire. Rome, 
Alexandria, Carthage — all centers of government, of 
education, and of culture — were the scenes of a large 
part at least of their activities. Patrick's chief work 
was beyond the bounds of the Roman state, in an 
age when the institutions of civilization seemed col- 
lapsing, among a rude people, and on the remote 
frontiers of the then known world. The men who 
have attracted our attention were all of conspicuous 
scholarship, who moved their own time and after-ages 
by what they wrote. Patrick was by his own declara- 
tion uneducated. But two brief writings of his com- 
position have survived. They are not treatises on 
deep problems of the Christian faith. He could not 
have discussed such matters had he wished. He left 
only a crudely written account of what God had 
wrought through him (his Confession) ; and an indig- 
nant pastoral protest against the capture of men and 
women of his flock by a British chieftain (the Letter 
to Coroticus). His own life was so obscure that his 
very existence has been doubted; and competent 
scholars have most variously estimated the extent and 
significance of his work.^ Yet Christianity has been 

I All earlier literature regarding Patrick has been superseded 
by the recent studies of Professors Zimmer and Bury. Professor 

87 



88 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

advanced by men of lowly capacities and attainments, 
as well as by those of education and high station; 
and a consideration of Patrick may exhibit the 
forces by which it has made progress as truly as a 
study of Athanasius or of Augustine. 

In Roman days what are now England, Ireland, 
and Scotland were inhabited by Kelts, of whom the 
Irish, the Highlanders of Scotland, and the Welsh 
are now the representatives. Though divided into 
two main language groups, the Irish-Scotch and the 
British, they were similar in original habits of thought 
and intercommunication was easy. Roman arms, 
however, subdued only what is now England and 
southern Scotland, with the result that a considerable 
degree of Roman culture was introduced into the 
conquered portions, while the rest largely remained 
in their primitive state. In the Roman section the 
church at length obtained a footing; but, as in the 
northwestern part of the Empire generally, it was 
feebly represented till after the conversion of Con- 
stantine. Bishops of London, York, and Lincoln were 

Zimmer {Realencyklopddie fiir protestantische Theologie und 
Kirche, 3d. ed., X, 204-21, translated into English as The Celtic 
Church in Britain and Ireland, 1902) minimizes his significance, 
and regards him as identical with Palladius, of which more will 
be said. Professor Bury {The Life 0} St. Patrick and His Place 
in History, 1905) has answered Zimmer, in the main successfully, 
and has shown the real importance of Patrick's work. He 
attempts, less successfully, to distinguish Patrick from Palladius. 
The writer would acknowledge his large indebtedness to both of 
these scholars. 



PATRICK 89 

present, however, at the Synod of Aries in 314, and 
Christianity seems to have grown rapidly in Britain, 
as in the other western regions of the Empire, during 
the fourth century. In estimating the intellectual 
state of British Christianity one recalls that Pelagius 
was from that land. 

With the collapse of the Roman power at the 
beginning of the fifth century, the civilization of 
Britain rapidly deteriorated, and the invasions of the 
Saxons drove the older inhabitants largely to the 
more mountainous western portion of England, and 
so extensively reintroduced heathenism that, while 
Christianity did not absolutely perish, most of the 
land became missionary territory. But before the 
Saxon conquest had widely extended — certainly by 
the end of the first quarter of the fifth century (401- 
25) — Christianity had begun to reach out from Ro- 
man Britain into Scotland and Ireland. This growth 
was doubtless aided by the ease of communication 
where speech was so similar, and in Ireland especially 
by the settlement of Irish in southwestern England. 
There was therefore a considerable degree of Christi- 
anity in Ireland before Patrick began his work/and 
he cannot be called "the Apostle of Ireland" in the 
sense that he introduced Christianity into a wholly 
heathen country. Yet the land was in a very rude 
stage of civilization, divided into tribes ruled over by 
petty chieftains, whom it is almost absurd to desig* 
nate by the name of kings. Some of these "kings" 



go GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

were subject to others, and all were under the over- 
lordship of the "high king" whose seat was at Tar a, 
northwestward of Dublin. Irish Christianity was in 
an unorganized state, and undoubtedly very much 
heathenism still existed at the time Patrick began his 
work. 

Like that of Augustine, though in much humbler 
surroundings, the story of Patrick's awakening to his 
mission in life is that of a transformation wrought in 
him by the Spirit of God. Born about 389, in a vil- 
lage called Bannaventa, probably in the region of 
southwestern England near the river Severn, but not 
yet identified with even approximate assurance, he 
was by race a Briton. His father was a man of 
some local distinction, a municipal councilor (de- 
curion), Calpurnius by name. His grandfather, Po- 
titus, had been a priest. He was therefore of a 
family long Christian; and the married state of his 
father and grandfather, though in clerical orders, 
is not strange ; for though clerical celibacy was urged 
by councils and popes, it was still far from universal. 
To the boy the British name Sucat, "Ready for 
'Battle," was given, and probably also the Latin name 
Patrick (Patricius), though this may have been later 
self -assumed in view of his father's prominence in the 
local community.^ Though in far-off Britain, it was 
with a strong sense of belonging to the great Roman 

I The latter is Professor Zimmer's conjecture; the former, and 
more probable, that of Professor Bury. 



PATRICK 91 

Empire that Patrick grew up. That Empire had 
fallen on evil days. The death of the able Theo- 
dosius in 395 was followed by the division of the 
Empire between his feeble sons, Arcadius and Hono- 
rius. The Germanic tribes promptly began their dev- 
astating invasions which resulted in the capture of 
Rome itself in 410. In the peril of the central prov- 
inces the troops were withdrawn from the Roman 
frontier. One legion was removed from Britain in 
401, and practically all the remaining forces in 407. 
Thus left well-nigh defenseless, the Romanized por- 
tions of the islands were attacked by their less civilized 
foes on all sides, by Irish, Picts, and Saxons, and 
became a prey to plunder and soon to conquest. 

In one of these invasions, probably in 405, at all 
events/When Patrick was sixteen, he was taken pris- 
oner by Irish raiders, and carried a slave to the 
western portion of Ireland, into the region now known 
as Connaught. Here, under the hardest of condi- 
tions, as a herder of swine, he lived six years. But 
here, in captivity, his spiritual nature was awakened, 
as Augustine's had been amid the far different sur- 
roundings of cultivated and luxurious Milan. He 
now turned to God in constant prayer, going out 
before dawn, or whenever he could steal away from 
his work to seek him. Spiritual things now became 
to him the most important of realities. At last he 
attempted to escape. With difficulty he made his 
way to the east coast, probably to Wicklow; and 



92 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

there he found a vessel about to sail, the heathen 
crew of which he persuaded with difficulty, and as he 
believed only through divine answer to his prayers, 
to take him with them. As part of the cargo was 
Irish hounds, they may have felt the readier to allow 
his presence as able, from his rough woodland life, 
to handle these fierce dogs. The ship bore him in 
three days to what is now France; but he was not 
easily rid of his new-found and distasteful com- 
panions, who kept him with them as they carefully 
avoided the towns and even the farms of that land, 
then just desolated by the invasions of the Vandals. 
It seems probable that they thus journeyed to north- 
ern Italy, though Patrick's description of the experi- 
ence is most perplexing; and that it was in Italy, 
also, in 411 or 412, that he broke away from the 
associates whom he had accompanied since sailing 
from Ireland. At all events it seems certain that for 
several years he now found a peaceful home in the 
monastery which Honoratus had just founded on one 
of the little islands of Lerins, in the Mediterranean, 
off the extreme southeastern coast of what is now 
France. 

Patrick's course is hard to trace, but it would 
appear that, not far from 415, he was once more in his 
old home in England. There he had a remarkable 
dream, like to that of Paul at Troas.^ It seemed to 
him that a messenger stood by him with letters from 

» Acts 16:9. 



PATRICK 93 

Ireland summoning him to labor for Christ where 
once he had been a slave. Thenceforth he never 
doubted his divine call to preach the gospel in that 
land. He would not undertake the work, however, 
without further preparation and the support of the 
ecclesiastical authorities; and, therefore, he now 
went to Auxerre in France, ninety-three miles south- 
east of Paris, for study and to enlist friends. Here he 
was ordained a deacon by Bishop Amator. But 
evidently the realization of his plan was difficult, and 
it is easy to imagine that his want of education, and 
what must have seemed to many his visionary nature, 
led to the obstacles which he found in his way. It 
was to be fourteen years at least after his arrival in 
Auxerre before his wish to be sent to Ireland was to 
be gratified. 

The accomplishment of his desires came about in 
a way that involves one of the most perplexing his- 
torical questions connected with Patrick's career. 
Amator had been succeeded by Germanus as bishop 
off Auxerre. The" Pelagian controversy was at its 
height. • Pelagius himself was a native of Britain, or 
even possibly of Ireland, and his views had no little 
following among the Christians of those lands. In 
429, at the request of British opponents of Pelagian- 
ism, and with the approval ofvPope Celestine (422- 
32) secured by a deacon "Palladius," Germanus 
went to England and waged spiritual warfare against 
Pelagian opinions. The Irish Christians could at 



94 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

most have been few, and they were thus far unor- 
ganized. The pope's attention was attracted by 
Palladius to Irish affairs, and, probably in 431, he 
consecrated the deeply interested Palladius as bishop 
for Ireland. In 432 Patrick entered on his work in 
Ireland as a bishop. The question naturally arises 
whether Palladius and Patrick were not the same 
person ; and whether Patrick did not, therefore, go to 
Ireland with the approval of the Bishop of Rome. 
Competent scholars are divided on the problem. To 
the present writer, the conclusion that the same per- 
son is indicated by both names seems much the more 
probable, though a positive affirmation or denial 
awaits more evidence than is at present available.^ 
If Palladius and Patrick were not one, then it may 
be concluded that Pope Celestine sent Palladius, and 
that probably on news of his early death, Patrick, 
always so eager to labor in Ireland, but thus far 

I Professor Zimmer regards them as identical, Professor Bury 
as separate personalities. For the identity may be urged the close 
connection of dates; the interest of "Palladius" in Irish affairs; 
the fact that both were ordained bishop for Ireland; that both 
had relations with Germanus and Auxerre; and not least, that 
"Palladius" seems to be a Latinized equivalent of Patrick's 
British name, Sucat = " Ready for Battle." Against it may be 
presented the tradition represented by Muirchus' Life of Patrick, 
late in the seventh century, that is, two hundred years after Patrick's 
death, that "Palladius" had a brief mission to Ireland, ending in 
his early demise, and was followed by Patrick. Then, too, the 
fact that the seventh-century literature regarding Patrick does 
not represent him as ordained by the pope, presents a serious 
argument against the identity claimed. 



PATRICK 95 

hindered, was consecrated to the bishopric so recently 
estabHshed and vacated. In that case he was proba- 
bly ordained by Germanus of Auxerre. At all events 
Palladius-Patrick, or Patrick, if Palladius and Pat- 
rick are not identical, entered on his life-task in 
Ireland in 432. All had been thus far a long prepa- 
ration, the difficulties of which had been surmounted 
by his Christian enthusiasm and his confidence that 
God had called him to this service. 

From 432 to his death on March 17, 461, with the 
probable exception of a brief journey to Rome about 
441-43, Patrick labored in Ireland. The accounts of 
his work are so overlaid with legend that its amount 
or its places are difficult to trace; but certain it 
is that it was of a threefold character. He preached 
as a missionary to the heathen, and with marked 
success. He himself recorded that he had baptized 
thousands. Such a statement involves of course 
much superficiality in his presentation of Christianity; 
but there is no reason to doubt that a large propor- 
tion of the heathen population of the island were won 
by him to at least an outward acknowledgment of 
the gospel. He ordained priests and bishops, and 
gave to the church of Ireland a definite form. He 
founded monasteries, for which the Irish of his day 
seem to have had a peculiar aptitude ; and in Ireland 
the church became monastic in its form for the next 
two centuries at least to a degree not elsewhere char- 
acteristic of it. Indeed, it may be believed that this 



GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

monastic tendency went much farther than Patrick 
himself desired. He would have preferred a nearer 
approximation to conditions as they existed on the 
continent. He made Latin the language of worship 
in the Irish church. He was, that is, not so much 
the representative of the papacy, as of the unity of 
western Christendom, into conformity with which he 
would bring the weak Irish Christianity which he 
found at the beginning of his activities, and which 
he greatly extended and strengthened. 

The scenes of Patrick's labors in Ireland are 
largely obscured by legend; but his work centered 
probably in the northeast portion of the island. 
There he founded the church of Armagh about 444, 
which was destined to be the leading see of Ireland, 
and to have an ecclesiastical distinction among its 
bishoprics like that of Canterbury in England. At 
Saul, in the present County of Down, he was buried. 
Besides these efforts to spread Christianity in north- 
eastern Ireland, he worked also in Meath, and in the 
western districts which compose Connaught. His 
activities were therefore chiefly in the northern half 
of the island. That he regarded it all as the field 
of his charge is evident, and there is reason to think 
that he preached yet more widely than has been indi- 
cated ; but these labors are exceedingly obscure. 

Enough of the picture of Patrick appears through 
the mists of time, however, to show not merely that he 
was a man of rare Christian enthusiasm and indom- 



PATRICK 97 

itable persistence, who, in spite of all limitations 
through lack of education, did a large mission- 
ary work; but that he aimed to serve the general 
cause of Christianity well in a critical age. The 
Roman world was falling into ruin. In Britain, in- 
vasions of Angles and Saxons were beginning which 
were to make large portions of England once more 
heathen. Patrick sought to organize the feeble Chris- 
tian beginnings of Ireland. He brought them, for a 
time at least, into closer connection with the Chris- 
tianity of continental Europe. He helped to extend 
the conquests of Christianity beyond the farthest 
reach of Roman arms. He had no thought of foster- 
ing a church independent of the papacy, or of the 
church of the Empire. Rather, he sought for the 
Christians of far-off Ireland closer fellowship with 
the rest of western Christendom. That the type of 
unity which has Rome as its center was to prove full 
of peril he could not see. That result was still veiled 
in the future. But that he should wish the Chris- 
tians of Ireland not only increased in numbers, but 
organized and brought fully into the great sisterhood 
of churches of western Christendom, shows the strong 
impression which the imperial unity that had its cen- 
ter at Rome had made on one of Rome's citizens, 
though he was born in the farthest confines of the 
Empire and in the time of its physical decay. 

Yet Patrick's desires for organization and unity 
were but imperfectly realized. The tribal division 



98 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

of Ireland, its passion for monasticism, and its ac- 
tual separation from the Christianity of the conti- 
nent, made the type of religion in Ireland for more 
than a century and a half after his death essentially 
monastic. Monasteries, rather than bishoprics, were 
the seats of its life. The island was covered with 
them; and from the monasteries came missionaries 
who not merely carried Christianity to western Scot- 
land, like Columba (563), but spread it in northern 
England, and even reached Italy, Germany, and ulti- 
mately far-off Iceland with their labors. It was not 
till long after Roman missions, begun in 597, had 
converted a large portion of Anglo-Saxon England, 
that Ireland fully entered into the Roman obedience. 
That history of semi-independence was on the whole 
most creditable; but under the conditions of the 
early Middle Ages, the larger unity in which Patrick 
believed, and for which he strove, was well-nigh 
essential to ultimate progress. 

QUESTIONS 

1. What is true of Patrick's education and intellectual 
abilities ? 

2. What was the nature of the population of the British 
islands ? In how far was it Christian at the beginning of the 
fifth century ? 

3. What was the effect of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of 
England ? 

4. Was Ireland a wholly heathen land when Patrick 
began his work ? 



PATRICK 99 

5. Where and when was Patrick born? His captivity 
and escape ? 

6. What was the nature of Patrick's spiritual awakening, 
and what did it lead him to desire to do ? 

7. What relation had the Pelagian controversy to Pat- 
rick's going to Ireland ? 

8. Was Patrick ordained and sent by Pope Celestine ? 

9. What was the nature of Patrick's work in Ireland? 
Its threefold aim ? 

10. Where did he labor and where was he buried ? 

11. What was the value, and what the results of Patrick's 
work? 

ADDITIONAL READING 

H. Zimmer (translated by Miss A. Meyer), The Celtic Church 

in Britain and Ireland (London, 1902). 
J. B. Bury, The Life of St. Patrick and His Place in History 

(London, 1905). 
Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (New York, 

IV, 43-52. 



BENEDICT 



VI 
BENEDICT 

There has already been abundant occasion to 
mention monasticism in these sketches. The insti- 
tution, as has been seen, was favored by men as 
widely divided geographically as Athanasius, Augus- 
tine, Ambrose, and Patrick. In the fourth and fifth 
centuries it was rapidly spreading, and down to the 
time of Luther, who was himself a monk, almost 
every leader of the church who rendered it conspicu- 
ous service was either himself a monk or a warm sup- 
porter of monasticism. Such unanimity of approval 
shows that the institution must have appealed to 
men for centuries as the highest manifestation of the 
Christian life. Though Protestantism rightly repu- 
diated it, it is still regarded with favor by large sec- 
tions of the church. 

Monasticism was the normal outcome of ascetic 
tendencies which have their beginnings even in 
apostolic times. A life of abstinence and especially 
of celibacy was very early regarded as of superior 
sanctity, and was approved by such men as Ter- 
tullian, Origen, and Cyprian. Long before the con- 
version of the Empire many took such vows, though 
at first without withdrawing from the ordinary life of 
the cities. The first separate society of ascetics dates 

103 



I04 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

from the close of the third century and was founded 
by Hierakas of Leontopolis in Egypt. Its members 
were pledged to abstain from marriage, wine, and 
meat. But the tendency which it represented went 
back almost to the beginnings of Christianity. Its 
fundamental principle, the basis of later monasticism, 
was the feeling that in withdrawal from the ordinary 
associations of the world and in the conquest of the 
passions the highest type of Christian life is to be 
found. It was favored by the conviction, as old as 
the time of Hermas (130-40), that the New Testa- 
ment teaches a lower and a higher morality, its pre- 
cepts of faith, hope, and charity being binding on all; 
but its advice being for those who would do more 
than is required of the ordinary Christian, Chief of 
such works of supererogation are voluntary poverty 
and voluntary abstinence from marriage.^ They 
constituted the elements, it was thought, of the holier 
life. 

Monasticism itself, which had its roots in this 
earlier asceticism, originated in Egypt. Its first form, 
and one long continuing, especially in the East, was 
that of the hermit life. Anthony, the earliest example 
of Christian monasticism, was born, about 251, in 
the village of Koma. Under the impulse of Christ's 
words to the rich young man,' which may be called 
the golden text of monasticism, he gave away his 

I Matt. 19:10-22; I Cor. 7:7, 8. 
a Matt. 19:21. 



BENEDICT lOS 

property when twenty, and soon took up a lonely her- 
mit's life in a tomb. His example was contagious, 
and he speedily had scores of imitators. Later 
legend loved to recount his battles with temptations 
assailing him in visible forms. His long life was 
protracted to one hundred and five years, and he was 
the friend and supporter of Athanasius in the great 
Arian conflict. While the hermit type long con- 
tinued popular in Egypt, a great improvement was 
effected there by Pachomius, when, not far from the 
year 322, he instituted the first Christian monastery. 
Instead of permitting the monks to live singly or in 
groups of hermits, each a law to himself, Pachomius 
established a regulated common life, in which the 
monks ate, labored, and worshiped, keeping fixed 
hours, doing manual work, dressed in uniform garb, 
and were imder strict discipline. Pachomius' re- 
form was an immense advance on the hermit life 
with its liability to idleness and eccentricity. It 
brought monasticism into system and restraint. It 
made the monastic life easy for women, for whom 
the hermit form was well-nigh impossible. 

Undoubtedly the strongest appeal made by mo- 
nasticism to the church of the fourth and fifth cen- 
turies was due to the belief, already noticed, that it 
was the most Christian form of life. Its spread was 
aided, however, by the general misery of the declining 
Empire, especially the grinding system of taxing the 
middle classes of the population, to which, more 



io6 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

than to any other single cause, the economic and 
military collapse of the Empire was dne^ Politically 
and socially monasticism was most unfortunate. At 
the time the Empire was most suffering from lack 
of men to fill its armies and money for its treasury, 
it took thousands from family life and productive 
industry. Religiously considered, its effects were 
twofold. While the system undoubtedly harmed 
ordinary Christian life by fostering the feeling that 
the truest Christian service could not be rendered 
under the ordinary and natural conditions of human 
society, it produced, not merely in its early period, 
but throughout mediaeval history, a noble army of 
missionaries, preachers, scholars, and consecrated 
men and women. 

^Monasticism soon spread far beyond the bounds 
of Egypt. Syria was its next great conquest; and 
Asia Minor was won/ especially through the influence 
of Basil, Gregory of Nazianzen, and Gregory of 
Nyssa, the champions of the Nicene faith of the 
generation that succeeded Athanasius. To Basil, 
who died in 379, was due the " Rule" under which the 
monasticism of the Greek church is organized to the 
present day. 

y-'From the East monasticism was speedily intro- 
duced into western Europe^ in spite of some opposi- 
tion, by the efforts of Athanasius, though it was not 
till between 370 and 380 that the first monastery was 
there established. Furthered in Rome by Jerome, 



BENEDICT 107 

in Milan by Ambrose, in North Africa by Augustine, 
in France by Martin of Tours, the institution spread 
with immense rapidity through all western Chris-I 
tendom. Great diversity of organization existed,' 
however; some monasteries following the "Rule" of 
Pachomius, others that of Basil, and yet others those 
composed by western leaders. In this want of uni- 
formity was a source of much irregularity, and, as 
time soon proved, of much corruption. fThe sys- 
tematizer and organizer of western monasticism, the 
man who gave to early monasticism its noblest expres- 
sion, was to be Benedict. 

Benedict was born in Nursia (Norcia), about 
eighty-five miles northeast of Rome, late in the fifth 
century. His education in Rome had advanced but 
little when he adopted the extremest form of asceti- 
H:ism, and dwelt as a hermit in a cave near Subiaco, in 
the mountains some forty miles eastward of the city. 
Here he spent three years in the study of the Scrip- 
tures and in severe self-mortification, till the monks 
of a neighboring monastery chose him for their abbot. 
His strict discipline proved irksome to them, how- 
ever. He narrowly escaped death by poison at their 
hands, and gladly betook himself once more to his 
cave. He could not now be alone, for his fame 
attracted disciples. He taught children, he estab- 
lished a group of small monasteries. Subiaco proved 
at length, however, an- uncomfortable place of so- 
journ by reason of the jealous opposition to Benedict 



I08 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

of one of its clergy; and, therefore, he left it, now a 
man of ripened observation and experience. In 529, 
he laid, at Monte Cassino, eighty-five miles south- 
east of Rome, the foundations of what was to be 
the most famous monastery in Europe, the mother- 
house of the Benedictine order. For this monastery 
he wrote his celebrated' "Rule." Here he taught, 
preached, and lived, a pattern of monastic piety till 
his death, which occurred after the summer of 542.^ 
Benedict was no scholar, but he had the Roman 
genius for administration, an earnest belief in mo- 
nasticism as the ideal Christian life, and a profound 
knowledge of human nature. In the creation of his 
"Rule" he built on the work of the regulators of 
monasticism who had gone before him, but with a 
moderation and good sense that reveal the keenness 
of his observation and his capacity to meet existing 
needs. Monasticism, in his judgment, had its grave 
perils. Many monks lived unworthily of their pro- 
fession. Some were no better than vagabonds. 
These evils were due to lack of discipline. Discipline 
was a fundamental need; yet it must not be made too 
heavy a yoke for ordinary men. It is this remarkable 
combination of strict restraint with some real degree 
of freedom, of lifelong vows with moderation in 
requirements, that above all distinguished Benedict's 
"Rule." 

I The traditional date, March 21, 543, is without adequate 
historic support. The East-Gothic king, Totila, visited him in 
the summer of 542. That is the last certain event in his life. 



BENEDICT 109 

Benedict's conception of the monastic career seems 
to have been that of a spiritual garrison holding duty 
for Christ in a hostile world. As such, its discipline 
was a necessary part of its life. None should enter 
its service until he had tried the life fully for at least 
a year's novitiate, during which he should be free 
to leave. This completed, the would-be monk took 
the threefold vows which forever cut him off from 
the world, binding himself to permanent life in the 
monastery, poverty and chastity, and obedience to its 
rule and its head. The government of the monas- 
tery was vested in an abbot; and nowhere does 
Benedict's skill more signally appear than in his 
provisions for its exercise. While each monk was 
vowed to absolute obedience to the abbot's com- 
mands, even if they seemed to him impossible of ful- 
filment, the abbot was chosen by the free suffrage of 
all the monks, he could decide weighty matters only 
after calling for the judgment of the whole body, and 
smaller concerns affecting the monastery only on 
hearing the opinion of the elder brethren. Benedict 
was wise enough to know that a sensible man, even 
if given absolute authority in theory, would not long 
resist the wishes of the majority of those whose advice 
he was obliged to take in all cases of importance, 
yfjnder the abbot, and appointed by him ''with the 
advice of the brethren," was to be a provost as an 
assistant in government, and in large monasteries 
"deans," also, chosen for the same purpose. That 



no GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

the separation of the monks from the world should 
be as complete as possible, Benedict prescribed that 
each monastery, wherever feasible, should be equip- 
ped to furnish the necessaries of life, since he deemed 
wandering outside its walls a chief spiritual danger.^ 

Benedict's regulations concerning food and drink 
exhibited a similar moderation and wisdom. He 
would have neither luxury nor undue fasting, and 
he was especially considerate in the care of those who 
were ill. Since worship was a large part of monastic 
life, careful requirements were made for its observ- 
ance in the "Rule." On the supposed authority 
of Scripture, Benedict required not merely seven 
services in the twenty-four hours, but made much 
of that appointed for two in the morning, the 
" vigil. "^ In contrast to the prescriptions of some 
other "Rules," however, the services appointed by 
Benedict, except the "vigil," were notably brief, 
demanding only about twenty minutes each. They 
consisted chiefly in the recitation of the Psalms, the 
whole book being used each week. 

Benedict's most fruitful requirements were re- 
garding labor. "Idleness," said he, in the "Rule," 
"is hostile to the soul, and therefore the brethren 
should be occupied at fixed times in manual labor, 
and at definite hours in religious reading." He 
saw clearly the moral value of work; and he was 
broad-minded enough in his conception of labor to 

I Ps. 119 : 62, 164. 



BENEDICT III 

include in it that of the mind as well as that of the 
hands. The proportion naturally varied with the 
seasons. In the harvest time of summer the manual 
labor of the fields was the first duty; in the com- 
parative rest of winter, especially in Lent, oppor- 
tunities, and consequently requirements, for reading 
were increased. Those who could not read were to 
have additional manual work assigned to them, that 
they might have no relaxation of duties by reason of 
their ignorance. Besides reading, the instruction of 
boys placed in charge of the monastery was a duty of 
the monks following the example of Benedict him- 
self. -^ 

A Benedictine monastery that was true to the 
purposes of the founder of the order was, therefore, 
a little world in itself, in which the monks lived a 
strenuous but not overburdened life, involving 
worship, vigorous labor in the shop and fields, and 
serious reading. It made every Benedictine mon- 
astery the possessor of something of a library; and, 
though Benedict himself says nothing about clas- 
sical learning, his aim being primarily religious, the 
Benedictine monasteries soon copied and read the 
great literary examples of Latin antiquity. Perhaps 
a considerable influence in this direction of study 
came from the monastery near Squillace, in extreme 
southern Italy, founded before Benedict's death by 
Cassiodorius, in which the cultivation of the classics 
was one of the duties of the monks. At all events, it 



112 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

is to the monasteries of the order of Benedict that 
we owe not merely the preservation of the writings 
of the Latin Church Fathers but the masterpieces 
of Roman literature. 

From Italy the Benedictine "Rule" spread rapidly 
over western Europe. It is almost impossible to ex- 
aggerate the services of these monks in the transition 
period caused by the ruin of the old Roman civiliza- 
tion and the growth in its place of the new life of 
the Germanic conquerors. That that new life pre- 
served so much of the best the old had to offer in 
Christianity and civilization alike was largely due to 
this Benedictine monasticism. Northern Europe was 
then much like North America at the coming of the 
first European settlers. It was in large measure a 
land of forests and untilled soil. The monasteries 
did what a modern mission station does among bar- 
barous peoples. They instructed in the principles of 
Christianity, they relieved distress and sickness to a 
considerable degree, they taught agriculture to the 
peoples of northern Europe, they preserved such 
learning as survived the Germanic invasions, they 
gave the only schools. Above all, they made it 
possible, in a rude age when men won and held 
property and place in the world by the sword, for 
peace-loving, religious-minded people to find a com- 
paratively quiet and sheltered life. They gave the 
only opportunity that the early Middle Ages had to 
offer for study, for protection amid constant warfare, 



BENEDICT 113 

and for rest. They were a great missionary force, 
and a constant reminder to a rude population that 
there are other interests than those of the body. 

It is easy to see that monasticism had its perils. 
Some of them have already been pointed out. While 
the individual monk might vow himself to poverty, 
the monasteries often grew immensely rich through 
gifts, especially of land. Their discipline frequently 
became lax. Their original strenuousness was not 
easily preserved. The history of the Middle Ages 
shows constant efforts for their reform; and the 
foundation of new branches designed to repair the 
corruption into which the old had fallen. Above all, 
their conception of the Christian life was essentially 
unnatural. To enter a monastery was to separate 
from the world, to abandon the ordinary relationships 
of social life, to eschew marriage and all that the 
Christian home signifies. These were the funda- 
mental evils of monasticism and they grew out of an 
ascetic interpretation of Christianity which is much 
earlier than the monastic system. But to recognize 
this now is not to say that these faults were apparent 
to the men of the declining Roman Empire or of the 
Middle Ages. For them, generally, the monastic 
seemed the truest type of the Christian life. Nor 
should we, in noting the evils of monasticism, in any 
way underrate the immense services of the system to 
the spread and development alike of Christianity and 
of civilization in the most trying period of European 



114 GREAT men;;^of the christian church 

history, and, in fact, throughout the Middle Ages to 
the Reformation. Early European monasticism owed 
its usefulness in higher degree than to any other of 
its founders to the organizing ability, good sense, and 
consecration of Benedict. 

QUESTIONS 

1. What were the fundamental principles of Christian 
asceticism? How early did it appear in the church? How 
widely did it spread ? 

2. In what country did monasticism originate ? Who was 
the first Christian hermit ? 

3. What improvement did Pachomius introduce ? 

4. How did the declining state of the Roman Empire aid 
the growth of monasticism ? 

5. What influence had Basil on its spread and organiza- 
tion? 

6. Under whose auspices was monasticism introduced into 
the West ? 

7. What was the early religious life of Benedict ? Where 
and how did he labor ? What great monastery did he estab- 
lish? 

8. What evils did Benedict attempt to correct? What 
was the importance of his "Rule" ? What was his conception 
of the monastic life ? 

9. How did one become a monk ? How was a monastery 
governed ? How did Benedict combine obedience with some 
degree of freedom ? 

10. What can be said of Benedict's prescriptions as to 
food and worship ? 

11. What importance did Benedict attach to labor? 
Why ? Was this labor manual only ? 

12. Some services of monasticism to Europe? 

13. The good and evil in monasticism ? 



BENEDICT 115 

ADDITIONAL READING 
Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (New York, 

1884), HI, 147-233- 

Ephraim Emerton, An Introduction to the Study of the Middle 

Ages (Boston, 1888), pp. 135-49. 

, Mediaeval Europe (Boston, 1894), pp. 555-81. 

F. Guizot, History of Civilization in France^ Lecture XIV 

(1830), English translation (New York, 1882). 
Adolf Harnack, Monasticism (London 1901). 



HILDEBRAND 



VII 
HILDEBRAND 

There has been frequent occasion to mention the 
growth of the power of the Bishop of Rome. That 
increase had many causes and was by no means uni- 
form. Even before the close of the first century, 
Clement, writing to the Corinthians in the name of 
the Roman church, uses a tone of admonition that, 
though fraternal, implied that Rome ought to be 
heard. The Gnostic controversy strengthened Rome's 
position as the great church of the West in which 
apostles had worked, and therefore as the bearer of 
the apostolic tradition. Irenaeus and Tertullian, 
before the latter became a Montanist, thus looked up 
to it as the head of Christendom. Its position in the 
capital favored its growth in honor, and no less the 
large size and conspicuous benevolence of its con- 
gregation. In the great Nicene and christological 
controversies the church of Rome could boast its 
orthodoxy. The exigencies of the Nicene quarrel led 
the Council of Sardica, in 343, to give to the Bishop 
of Rome the right of deciding disputed possession of 
bishoprics. An edict of the emperor Theodosius, in 
380, ordered all to be of the faith given by Peter to 
the Romans and laid legal foundations for the au- 
thority of the pope over all western Christendom. 

119 



I20 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

Pope Innocent I (401-17) claimed judicial power over 
the whole church, and Leo I (440-61) renewed the 
pretentions in yet more drastic form, the more effect- 
ively because an edict of the western emperor Valen- 
tinian III, in 445, recognized the pope as the head 
of the church, with power to call bishops to judgment, 
and with authority to declare what should be held by 
all as law in ecclesiastical questions. 

The Germanic invasions, so destructive of the 
political fabric of the Roman Empire, helped mightily 
the growth of the papacy. They completed the sepa- 
ration of East and West, thus giving the papacy an 
independent field for development. They removed 
imperial control such as still pressed on the patriarch 
of Constantinople. They made the pope the heir of 
the honor and reverence which attached, even in its 
political decay, to the city which had once been the 
capital of the world. Above all, they presented a 
splendid missionary opportunity of which the papacy 
amply availed itself, not merely for the spread of 
Christianity, but for the extension of its own author- 
ity. The missions of the monk Augustine to Eng- 
land, in 596, sent by Gregory I (590-604), and 
of Boniface to Germany (719-55) added strong 
churches in those lands to the Roman communion, 
which were much more directly champions of the 
papacy than the older ecclesiastical bodies of western 
Europe. 

Nor did the papacy neglect the new monarchies 



HILDEBRA^rD I3I 

that rose on the ruins^of the Roman state. It early 
entered into relations with the Franks. With papal 
approval the crown was transferred from the last of 
the incapable Merovingians to Pippin the Short 
(751, 754). In turn, the papacy received from that 
Prankish king the beginnings of its territorial sover- 
eignty, the '^ States of the Church," which it was to 
hold till 1870. Whatever other factors may have 
entered into the transfer of the Roman imperial dig- 
nity, in the judgment of western Europe, from the 
feeble Constantine VI of Constantinople to Charle- 
magne, it was Pope Leo III who crowned the new 
emperor at Rome in 800. It was Nicholas I (858- 
67) who compelled a royal great-grandson of Charle- 
magne to take back a discarded wife, who humbled 
the chief bishops of Germany, France, and Italy, and 
who asserted the rights of the papacy even in the case 
of the patriarch of Constantinople. In his claims 
and deeds the programme of the mediaeval papacy 
may be said to have been presented. Even Hilde- 
brand went but little farther than Nicholas. 

Nothing was more remarkable about the Roman 
Empire than the long-continued sway which it held 
over the imaginations of men. Even after its political 
institutions had crumbled into ruin, it seemed to the 
Middle Ages that it could not die. The civilized 
world, however, actually divided, still continued theo- 
retically a unit, having, as Pope Gelasius I had de- 
clared to the emperor Anastasius in 494, two heads, 



122 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

the one temporal, represented by the emperor, the 
other spiritual, by the Bishop of Rome. Hence, 
when a Germanic leader of imperial size appeared in 
Charlemagne, the sentiment of western Christendom 
approved what it regarded as the transfer of the 
Roman Empire to him; and when his line ran out in 
inefficiency, it believed that the Empire was continued 
in the new rulers of Germany. In 962, when Pope 
John XII crowned Otto I of Germany emperor, the 
"Holy Roman Empire" began that was to last till 
1806; but in the judgment of the time it was no new 
institution. Otto had simply been given a place in 
the long line of heads of the temporal world which 
had continued since Augustus. 

In mediaeval theory, therefore, church and state 
were but two aspects of Christendom; the one rep- 
resenting Christian society organized to secure spir- 
itual blessings, the other the same society united to 
preserve justice and temporal well-being. Theoreti- 
cally ichurch and state were in harmonious inter-* 
play, each aiming to secure the good of mankind; 
but as the soul is more important than the body, and 
man's salvation more desirable than his temporal, 
happiness, the church is the higher in dignity of the) 
two divinely co-ordinated powers. 

It is easy to see, however, that such a theory led 
to constant rivalry in practice. Theoretically har-i 
monious, church and state were actually contestants, 
the question being should the church rule the state, 



HILDEBRAND 123 

or the state control the church ? This contest was 
illustrated on countless fields, large and small, 
throughout the Middle Ages, but nowhere so con- 
spicuously as between the heads of the two orders — 
the popes and the emperors. Sometimes the one 
predominated, sometimes the other. Under Charle- 
magne's masterful rule, the leader of the state was 
unquestionably the superior; his weak great-grand- 
sons found in Nicholas I, as has been seen, a spirit- 
ual ruler of greater force than theirs. But, after 
Nicholas, the weight of influence for nearly two 
centuries was unquestionably on the imperial side. 
The popes, nominally chosen by the clergy and people 
of Rome, were from the last quarter of the ninth to 
nearly the middle of the eleventh centuries really the 
creatures of the unscrupulous nobility of Rome and 
its vicinity. When these lords had their way their 
appointees were, with some exceptions, unworthy of 
their high office. The papacy fell to its lowest 
depths. The emperors repeatedly interfered and se- 
cured the deposition of some of the worst, practically 
controlling the papal chair itself. Thus Otto I (963 
and 966) interfered in papal affairs and compelled the 
people of Rome to swear to choose no pope without 
imperial consent. Otto III (in 996 and 999) placed 
his own friends on the papal throne. Henry III at 
the Synod of Sutri (1046) secured the deposition of 
three rival Itahan popes, and vindicated for him- 
self the right to nominate to the office. The Empire 



124 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

was thus actually the superior of the papacy. While 
emperors thus occasionally controlled even the choice 
of popes, the sovereigns of the period naturally 
exercised a practical right of nomination and ap- 
pointment to high ecclesiastical ofhce in their own 
territories. These appointments were often made 
for the most unspiritual reasons, personal favoritism, 
political influence, or money considerations. In the 
Empire, control of ecclesiastical appointments be- 
came vital for the maintenance of the imperial 
power itself. The great lay fiefs were hereditary. 
With them' the emperor could interfere but little. 
But if he could control the heads of the monasteries 
and the bishops, he could, by filling these posts with 
his friends, offset the lay nobility and raise sufficient 
taxes and troops. To take from the emperor the 
control of appointment to the chief ecclesiastical posts 
of Germany was to strike at the very foundations on 
which the imperial power of the eleventh century 
rested. 

It was inevitable, however, that many good men 
looked with disfavor on this systematic filling of 
ecclesiastical posts for other than religious reasons. 
They felt that the church should be independent of 
secular control. They believed that if the papacy 
could be occupied by men of character and power, 
strong enough to force the appointment of worthy 
candidates to church offices, and to take from the 
emperors their control, the religious situation would 



HILDEBRAND 1 25 

be materially bettered. This desire first found or- 
ganized expression in a reform movement known as 
that of Cluny. The monastery of Cluny had been 
founded in eastern France in 910, and, though Bene- 
dictine in government, had gradually become the 
head of a large group of monastic foundations, owing 
allegiance to its abbot. Of these dependencies, one 
was that of St. Mary on the Aventine Hill in Rome. 
From the first, the Cluny movement had a strongly 
reformatory character, its opposition being directed 
against "Simony," that is appointment to ecclesias- 
tical ofi&ce for any other than religious considerations, 
and " Nicolaitanism," meaning any breach of priestly 
celibacy, especially by the still widely prevalent 
marriage of priests.' The general tendency of 
the Cluny reform was, therefore, to emphasize 
the churchly rather than the secular forces of the 
time, and at the beginning of the eleventh century, 
many of its supporters were holding that by the 
establishment of a strong, independent, authorita- 
tive papacy alone could the desired reforms be 
accomplished. The papacy itself must be freed 
from dependence either on Roman nobles or on 
emperors, and made forceful enough to take high 
clerical appointments out of the hands of secular 
princes. 

Cluny principles were carried to the papacy itself 

' For the scriptural instances from which these names were 
derived, see Acts 8:18, 19; and Rev. 2:14, 15. 



126 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

by Bishop Bruno of Toul, a relative of the emperor 
Henry III, and practically appointed by him, who 
became pope as Leo IX (1048-54). Of high char- 
acter, forceful, learned, and popular, he revived the 
prestige of the papacy by numerous synods under his 
supervision in Germany, France, and Italy, and with- 
out forfeiting imperial support by too strenuous 
opposition, fought "Simony" and "Nicolaitanism." 
Above all, he brought the cardinalate into its modern 
significance. The pope had long had as his imme- 
diate advisors the bishops in the vicinity of Rome 
who looked up to him as their local archbishop, the 
priests in charge of the chief churches of the city, and 
the deacons at the head of the fourteen districts into 
which Rome was divided for charitable relief. These 
had been almost universally Romans. Leo IX now 
appointed to these offices men from anywhere in 
western Christendom, thus making the cardinalate 
in a sense representative of the church as a whole — 
and naturally, he chose sympathizers with the Cluny 
movement. Under him, Hildebrand came into 
prominence, though as yet far from shaping the 
papal policy, and the pupil rather than the teacher 
of Leo IX. 

Hildebrand was born, in humble circumstances, 
in the region of Italy known as Tuscany; but as he 
was early committed to the charge of an uncle who 
was abbot of St. Mary on the Aventine — the monas- 
tery of Cluny affiliations in Rome — he always re- 



HILDEBRAND 127 

garded himself as a Roman.' There he grew up, 
filled with Cluny ideas, and we first meet him in inti- 
mate relations with the unhappy Gregory VI, whom 
Henry III sent into exile in Germany in 1046. Hil- 
debrand accompanied that ex-pope, shov/ing thereby 
his fidelity, and remained in Germany till his patron's 
speedy death. Then, probably after a brief stay in 
Cluny itself, he accompanied the newly appointed 
Leo IX back to Rome. By Leo he was ordained a 
sub-deacon, and apparently intrusted with much of 
the secular and financial business of the papal see. 
Short of figure, and insignificant in appearance, he 
was soon recognized as of great talents and iron 
determination; and, though his role under Leo IX 
was subordinate, it was not long after that vigorous 
pontiff's death before he was recognized as the most 
forceful man in Rome and the most efiicient sup- 
porter of the extreme claims of the papacy, as well 
as an energetic opponent of "Simony" and "Nicolai- 
tanism." Such a man was needed to aid in carrying 
the papacy through the next stormy years. He and 
his party would free it first of all from dependence on 
the emperor or the Roman nobles. It was a most 
difficult task. Henry III died in 1056, leaving the 
Empire in confusion. Hildebrand largely aided in se- 
curing the recognition of Stephen IX (1057-58); but 
on his death, the cardinals were driven from Rome 

I The year of his birth is unknown, but must have been about 
1020. 



128 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

and the Roman nobles once more set up a pope to 
their liking. A weaker man than Hildebrand would 
have yielded. But, largely by his skill, the Romans 
were divided, the consent of the empress-regent was 
secured, and a reformatory pope, Nicholas II (1058- 
61) was chosen by the exiled cardinals at Siena. 

The circumstances of this choice were now enacted 
into a new law regulating papal election that essen- 
tially rules the choice of popes to this day. Whether 
the drafting of this constitution was Hildebrand's 
own work may be doubted, but the policy which it 
embodied was his. In terms intentionally indefinite, 
because it was impossible to see how far the new 
policy could be carried out, it was provided that in 
papal elections the cardinals should be the "leaders." 
Only indefinite and wholly secondary rights were 
allowed the emperor or the Roman people. Further- 
more, the cardinals could meet anywhere for an 
election, and choose the pope from the local Roman 
congregation only when they saw fit. This great 
constitution placed the choice of the pope thus in 
the hands of the cardinals, now mostly of the reform 
party, and took control at once from the Romans and 
the emperors. To prepare for the inevitable oppo- 
sition, Hildebrand entered into political combina- 
tions with such Italian forces as he could, notably 
with the Normans, who were conquering the southern 
portion of the peninsula. On the death of Nicho- 
las II the struggle came. But, thanks primarily to 



HILDEBRAND 129 

Hildebrand's political skill, in spite of the opposition 
of Romans, Germans, and Lombards, at the end of 
a most doubtful conflict, Hildebrand's candidate, 
Alexander II (1061-73), was safely secured in pos- 
session of the papacy, which made great strides 
under his leadership, aided by Hildebrand's abilities, 
toward an effective control not merely of the whole 
western church, but of the political situation of the 
hour. Under Alexander's approval, and with his aid, 
William the Conqueror gained England (1066), and 
the rulers of France, Germany, and Denmark, though 
unwillingly, had to yield much to his demands. 

It was but fitting that when Alexander II died in 
1073, Hildebrand was chosen his successor, under the 
name of Gregory VII. His policy had long been 
determined. To his thinking the church is by divine 
appointment superior to the state, and the head of 
the church, the pope, superior to all secular princes. 
As such, the pope could judge their worthiness to 
rule, could depose them when unfit, and exercise 
judgment thus over the political as well as over the 
religious interests of Christendom. The loftiness of 
this ideal is undeniable. In Hildebrand's theory, a 
pope, of high character, and with absolute authority, 
speaking with divine authority the moral judgment 
of Christendom, should be the final arbiter of all 
conduct. From him as God's representative rulers 
should take commands, and to him princes should be 
responsible. A visible Kingdom of God ought to be 



I30 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

the result. Actually impossible of realization this 
ideal was, but experience had not yet proved the fact, 
and Hildebrand undoubtedly believed in full sincer- 
ity that his lofty claims were really those of the 
gospel. 

The elements of the contest were at hand. Henry 
Ill's successor in Germany was his son, Henry TV, 
now twenty-three years of age, whose own disposi- 
tion and mistakes had alienated a considerable 
portion of his subjects, notably the Saxons, but who 
was at his best in adversity, and was marked by 
firmness, courage, and resourcefulness — an opponent 
in no way to be despised. Alexander II and Henry 
IV had quarreled over Henry's claim to fill the arch- 
bishopric of Milan as he wished, and the dispute 
was still unsettled. Alexander, just before his death, 
had threatened some of Henry's counselors with ex- 
communication on charges of "Simony." Nicholas 
II, as early as 1059, had forbidden all investiture with 
ecclesiastical office by laymen, and Alexander II had 
repeated the prohibition. If Henry persisted in fill- 
ing the bishoprics of the Empire, as he undoubtedly 
would, a quarrel was inevitable with a pope of Hilde- 
brand's principles. 

But, at first, the situation seemed favorable to the 
pope. Henry's hands were tied by a rebellion of 
the Saxons. So friendly to Hildebrand did he show 
himself in this distress, that the pope, in 1074, pro- 
posed to Henry a crusade to aid the hard-pressed 



HILDEBRAND 131 

Christians of the Orient and to drive back their 
Mohammedan foes — the first and almost unheeded 
note of a call that a little more than twenty years later 
was to rouse Europe to the greatest united effort of the 
Middle Ages. In 1075, however, Henry defeated the 
Saxons. His hands were free. His attitude toward 
Hildebrand's claims at once altered. He nominated 
a new archbishop for Milan, and sought to draw the 
Normans from the pope. The open quarrel at once 
began, and its scenes moved with tragic swiftness. 

In December, 1075, Hildebrand threatened Henry 
with excommunication. In January, following, 
Henry, and the majority of the German bishops and 
nobles assembled at Worms, declared Hildebrand no 
pope, refused obedience, and ordered him, in insult 
ing terms, to leave the papal chair. At the lenten 
synod in Rome, in 1076, Hildebrand replied by a 
coimterblast of unexampled papal action. He pro- 
nounced Henry excommunicated, deposed from sov- 
ereignty, and released the German vassals from their 
oaths of allegiance. Could Hildebrand make this 
sentence effective, the pope would be in truth, what 
he claimed, the ruler of kings and the arbiter of the 
disputes of nations. To a large extent he succeeded 
for the moment. Henry's support was at once di- 
vided. A great part of Germany fell away from 
him in a measure for religious, but even more for 
political reasons. Henry tried vainly to raise an 
army to march to Italy; instead, by the autumn of 



132 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

1076, his nobles compelled him to lay aside all royal 
state, and proposed to consider his further continu- 
ance in the kingly office at an assembly to be held in 
Augsburg beginning February 2, 1077, provided 
that before the end of that month he should be 
relieved from excommunication. At this convention 
the pope was invited to be present. 

It was now a vital issue with Henry to secure the 
removal of his excommunication before the fatal 
assembly should meet. In vain he sought to move 
Hildebrand by appeals. He now resolved on a 
course of action which showed him an adroit politi- 
cian if the success of the moment is considered, but 
which involved the most spectacular humiliation of 
the state, as represented in him, before the church, 
in the person of the pope, that the Middle Ages 
witnessed. Escaping with difficulty from Speyer, 
Henry made his way over the Alps just before 
Christmas, determined to meet Hildebrand as the 
pope journeyed toward Augsburg. Hildebrand, un- 
certain of Henry's intentions, sought refuge in the 
strong castle of Canossa, belonging to his de- 
voted supporter, Matilda, Marchioness of Tuscany. 
Thither Henry hurried, not as a warrior but as a 
penitent. The pope at first refused to receive him, 
as the decision of the future of the German kingship 
at such an assembly as that proposed at Augsburg, 
under papal guidance, would have been a mighty tri- 
umph for Hildebrand's claims. Henry was deter- 



HILDEBRAND 133 

mined to forestall that result by such a humiliation of 
apparent repentance that, in deference to public 
opinion, the pope must remove the excommunication* 
On three successive days he appeared barefoot, and in 
penitential attire, before the castle gate. It was such 
a manifestation of contrition as was then expected of 
great offenders, and could hardly be rejected, how- 
ever its real sincerity might be doubted. So, against 
his wishes, on January 28, 1077, Hildebrand admitted 
Henry to communion, though leaving the question of 
his restoration to the kingdom still open. For Henry 
this was enough. He was able now to render ineffect- 
ive the dreaded assembly at Augsburg ; though a rival 
king was chosen in the person of Rudolf of Swabia, 
by his German opponents. He was once more the 
head of a large force in his own land. He had saved 
his throne, and in many respects thwarted the pope, 
though at the cost of a terrible humiliation of his own 
dignity, and dishonor to his own conscience, for his 
"repentance" at Canossa had never been more than 
a political expedient. For the next three years, 
1077-80, Hildebrand held a largely neutral position 
between the two rival German kings, helping neither 
effectively, but striving to have their claims, and, 
therefore, the determination of the rightful sover- 
eignty of the Empire, submitted to his decision. In 
this he failed, and finding he must take sides openly 
he favored Rudolf, and once more, in March, 1080, 
pronounced Henry excommunicated, deposed, and 



134 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

his subjects released from allegiance. The same 
weapons of political warfare can seldom twice be 
used effectively. This time the papal sentence 
produced little effect. Public opinion in Germany 
had turned against Hildebrand; and the death of 
Rudolf, in October, 1080, placed Henry in a stronger 
position than he had ever thus far enjoyed. Henry 
now determined to carry the struggle to Rome itself. 
After long efforts, he captured an important part of 
the city in June, 1083. Even now he would recog- 
nize Hildebrand' s papacy, provided the pope would 
give up opposition to lay appointments. But Hilde- 
brand had the courage of his convictions, and abso- 
lutely refused to compromise his claims. Many, 
even of his cardinals, now regarded Hildebrand' s 
cause as lost, and fell away from him. In March, 
1084, Henry placed a partisan of his own as Clement 
III, on the papal throne. Hildebrand held only the 
Roman fortress, the Castle of San Angelo. The 
coming of the Normans to his aid alone saved him 
from f aUing into Henry's power ; but their cruel plun- 
dering of Rome embittered the Romans themselves 
against him as the cause of this devastation. When 
the Normans withdrew he had to go under their pro- 
tection, leaving Clement III in possession of the papal 
city. At Salerno the sad remaining months of his 
life were spent, and there he died, in exile, on May 25, 
1085. 
Hildebrand' s relations to Henry only have been 



HILDEBRAND 135 

considered. Did space permit, it would be interesting 
to trace his dealings with England, France, Spain, 
and Denmark. EvvCry where he pursued the same 
policy, though nowhere was the conflict so sharp 
or so picturesque as with Germany. His ideal was 
a divinely appointed church, having its highest rep- 
resentative in the pope, ruling the affairs of men. 
With equal zeal he fought, also, against "Simony" 
and " Nicolaitanism." Apparently he died defeated. 
Really, the firmness with which he fought brought a 
large degree of victory to his cause. He lives in 
history as the ideal of a mediaeval pope. He placed 
the papacy of the Middle Ages, if not superior to all 
worldly powers as he wished, at least equal to any of 
them. His ideas lived after him. In 1122, when 
Henry IV had been succeeded by Henry V and 
Calixtus II was on the papal throne, the Concordat 
of Worms largely settled the dispute with Germany 
by a compromise on the whole favorable to papal 
claims. Each bishop or abbot was to receive his 
investiture with spiritual authority from the church, 
his temporal possessions from the state. It was by 
no means all that Hildebrand wished, but it assured 
the independent share of the church in all ecclesiasti- 
cal elections, and the impulse toward sovereignty 
given by him to the papacy was long enduring. In 
methods he was unscrupulous; in his own personal 
religious life simple and sincere. That he believed 
his cause that of God there can te^no question. It 



136 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

is equally evident that he had departed widely from 
the conceptions of the gospel, and that his principles 
are utterly impossible of application to the modern 
world. 

QUESTIONS 

1. What geographical and political circumstances aided 
the growth of the papacy? 

2. What were the claims of Innocent I and Leo I ? 

3. What effect had the Germanic invasions on the papacy ? 
Its relations to the new monarchies ? 

4. What was the influence of Nicholas I ? 

5. Describe the mediaeval theory of the relations of church 
and state. Was it possible to realize it in practice ? 

6. What was the "Holy Roman Empire" ? Speak of inter- 
ferences of the German Empire with the papacy. 

7. Describe the origin and aims of the Cluny reform move- 
ment. What was meant by ' ' Simony ' ' and ' ' Nicolaitanism ' ' ? 

8. How were Cluny principles advanced by Leo IX? 
What is the cardinalate ? How did Leo IX modify it ? 

9. Outline Hildebrand's early career. What were his 
aims? 

10. What modification in the method of choosing popes was 
effected under Nicholas II ? Its purpose and permanency ? 

11. Outline Hildebrand's contest with Henry IV. What 
did Hildebrand attempt to take from Henry ? Why ? What 
principles were involved ? 

12. What was the scene at Canossa? How did it come 
to be? What advantages did Henry draw from it? What 
was its larger significance ? 

13. How did Hildebrand's struggle with Henry end? 
When and where did Hildebrand die ? 

14. Estimate the results of Hildebrand's work. 



HILDEBRANB 137 

ADDITIONAL READING 

W. R. W. Stephens, Hildebrand and His Time (New York, no 

date) ("Epochs of Church History" Series). 
Marvin R. Vincent, The Age of Hildebrand (New York, 1896). 
James Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire (New York, 1904). 
Ephraim Emerton, Mediaeval Europe (Boston, 1894, pp. 

135-269). 
Schaff (continued by David S. Schaff), History of the Christian 
Church (New York, 1907), V, Pt. I, 1-80. 



GODFREY 



VIII 
GODFREY 

It will be remembered that during the brief season 
at the beginning of his pontificate in which Hilde- 
brand cherished the thought that Henry IV would 
yield to his wishes he proposed to that monarch a 
crusade to aid the eastern Empire and to resist 
recent Moslem advances (1074).' The immediate 
occasion of his proposal was the conquest of Asia 
Minor by the Seljuk Turks. Doubtless the zeal 
of the great pope who first planned a crusade was 
stimulated in part by the hope that it would bring 
the Greek church into obedience to Rome ; but there 
is no reason to doubt that he was in this proposal, as 
in so much else, the interpreter of the spirit of his 
age, and that conceptions of a vitally religious nature 
had a large share in the formation of his plan. 

All religions have exhibited a strong tendency to 
the veneration of sacred places. Christianity has 
been no exception. By the time of the conversion of 
the Roman Empire the graves and relics of the 
marytrs were held in high honor ; and this reverence 
rapidly grew. Chief of all sacred places where it 
was thought prayer would more readily be heard, 
and whither pilgrimages were meritorious, was the 

« Ante, p. 130. 

141 



142 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

land where Christ had walked with his disciples, 
had suffered, lain in the tomb, and risen again. To 
see the scenes on which he had gazed, to kneel 
where he was born, to pray where his body had been 
buried, seemed to be in some sense to draw near to 
him. Hence Constantine founded great churches 
in Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and pilgrimages thither 
became at once frequent. These journeys to the 
holy places continued throughout the Middle Ages. 
The capture of Jerusalem by the Mohammedans in 
637 placed the sacred sites in Moslem control, but 
for the most part, the pilgrims, though taxed, 
were not interrupted. The conquest of Palestine 
by the Seljuk Turks altered the situation. Their 
fanatical zeal destroyed churches, oppressed the 
native Christians, and made pilgrimages exceedingly 
dangerous. 

This momentous change in the situation in Pales- 
tine occurred when religious enthusiasm in the West, 
especially where the Cluny movement was powerful, 
was producing what can be described as nothing less 
than a religious revival. That revival was accom- 
panied by an emphasis on the future life, and an 
outburst of rehgious mysticism, that was the more 
intense because of the general misery in which all 
classes of society found themselves, by reason of 
famines, constant warfare, and general unrest. To 
men in a world which offered so little of peace or 
comfort, the heaven of the gospels appealed as an 



GODFREY 143 

unspeakable boon; but the age was rough, violent, 
and gross, and men have perhaps never been more 
conscious of their unfitness for heaven than then. 
No better way thither could they conceive than to 
journey in penitence to pray where Christ had suf- 
fered and been glorified. Then, too, the age was one 
of knightly adventure. In particular, the Normans 
had recently conquered England and southern Italy, 
and were fighting with the Moslems in Sicily. They 
were eager, adventure-loving. The Crusades were, 
to appeal to three great passions: desire to come 
near to Christ by following in his earthly footsteps; 
longing for forgiveness of sins by the performance of 
some great act pleasing to God ; and love of adventure 
promising fighting, booty, territorial aggrandize- 
ment, and betterment of prospects in life. Some 
were moved primarily by one, some by another of 
these motives; but in many all three were so blended 
that it seems impossible to say which predominated. 
We should misjudge the Crusaders if we did not 
recognize that they felt they were doing something 
for Christ; we should credit them with far too great 
disinterestedness if we did not also perceive that they 
were doing something very human for themselves. 

The actual impulse to the First Crusade came from 
an appeal of the hard-pressed emperor at Constanti- 
nople to Urban II. That able pope (1088-99) ^^s 
by birth a Frenchman, had been a member of the 
Cluny order, and president of the cardinals under 



144 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

Hildebrand, whose purposes and ideals he fully- 
shared, though of a far more conciliatory spirit. He 
had maintained the Hildebrandian cause with great 
skill, and in March, 1095, ^^ ^^^ pursuit of that con- 
trol, he held a council of Piacenza, in northern Italy. 
Here the emperor Alexios presented his appeal 
through his messengers. The pope gave it a favor- 
able hearing; but the matrimonial irregularities of 
King Philip I of France led him to summon a further 
council at Clermont, in that land, for November, 
that the king's misdeeds might there be considered, 
and to this council Urban determined to present the 
thought of a crusade, not now, primarily, to help the 
eastern emperor, but for the rescue of the sacred 
places from Moslem hands. To Urban II was due 
the conception of a crusade, in the form which was 
actually to appeal to Europe; to his great teacher 
Hildebrand was due the origin of the idea of a crusade 
in any form. Urban' s thought was more purely 
religious than Hildebrand's had been. It was not 
the help of the eastern Empire, or the extension of 
p pal authority, that he had in mind so much as 
Christian control of the land hallowed by the earthly 
life of Christ. 

As the plan of the Crusade was Urban's, so the 
impulse which set the armies in motion came from 
him. To the assembled multitude at Clermont he 
spoke on November 27, 1095, in words which have 
not been exactly preserved, but the general purport 



GODFREY 145 

and effect of which are clear. He pictured the in- 
sults offered to the Christians and sacred places of 
the Holy Land, he called on western Christendom 
to cleanse the holy sites from such unbelievers, and 
promised the divine blessing on the undertaking. 
As he ended, the enthusiasm of the hearers swept all 
before it. "God wishes it," they shouted, and 
pledged themselves by hundreds to the accomplish- 
ment of the task. 

The pope's summons was taken up, throughout 
the length of France and the Rhineland, by preachers 
who fanned the enthusiasm for the Crusade, of 
whom the most famous, and probably the ablest, was 
Peter, called ''the Hermit," or "of Amiens," from 
the city of northern France in or near which he was 
born. Slight, gray-bearded, ascetic, eloquent, he 
fired men's hearts for the work. Later tradition, 
and probably a desire, also, to claim for monasti- 
cism a leading share in the great enterprise, repre- 
sented Peter as the originator of the Crusade. That 
he was not.^ The honor belonged to Urban II, but 
of his power as a preacher there can be no question. 
He was, however, but one of many preachers whom 
the pope's zeal and popular enthusiasm aroused. 

Under the impulse thus given thousands of the 
lower classes, ill prepared, and ill led, started from 

I The ablest recent defense of a greater share by Peter in the 
origin of the Crusade than is here assigned him is that of David 
S. Schaff, in Schafif's History 0} the Christian Church, V, Pt. I, 
341-45. To the writer it is not wholly convincing. 



146 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

France and the Rhineland in the spring of 1096. 
One such band was under the lead of Peter himself. 
But their own disorders won the hatred of the peoples 
through whose lands they passed, especially in Hun- 
gary and the Balkan countries. They reached Con- 
stantinople with fearful losses, and proved utterly 
unable to do effective work against the Turks. The 
real task of the Crusade was to be accomplished 
under the lead of the feudal nobility of the age. 
Four main armies were raised : one from the region 
of the lower Rhine; a second from southern France 
under Count Raymond of Toulouse; a third from 
the Normans of southern Italy, having as leaders 
Bohemond and Tancred ; and a fourth under counts 
Robert of Normandy and Stephen of Blois, from the 
territories of France which their titles indicated. Of 
these armies, the first named chiefly concerns us. 

The forces from the Rhineland, which may have 
numbered ten thousand horsemen and thirty thou- 
sand foot soldiers, were under the general leadership 
— it can hardly be called a command in the modern 
sense — of the noblest knightly character that the First 
Crusade produced, Godfrey of Bouillon, duke of 
Lower Lorraine, a region embracing territories now 
included in northern and eastern Belgium and 
stretching southward over a portion of what is now 
northern France and western Germany.^ Born 
about 1060, he was the son of an earnestly religious 

I Bouillon itself is in extreme southeastern Belgium. 



GODFREY 147 

mother. His churchly sympathies did not prevent 
him, however, from taking an active part on the side 
of Henry IV in the campaign in Italy which resulted 
in the political downfall of Hildebrand. What led 
him to the Crusade we do not know ; but his land was 
deeply penetrated by the Cluny spirit, and in the 
years immediately preceding the expedition it had 
suffered in unusual degree from famine and conse- 
quent misery. To him, as to his brothers and com- 
panions Eustace and Baldwin, and to the Crusaders 
generally, the call was not merely to service but to 
sacrifice. He sold or mortgaged a large part of his 
possessions, parting even with the castle of Bouillon, 
for the expenses of the great undertaking. 

In August, 1096, the long march was begun. 
They journeyed probably up the Rhine and down the 
Danube nearly to Vienna, then across Hungary to 
Belgrade, the skill and good faith of Godfrey defend- 
ing them from many of the hostilities from which the 
peasant bands of Crusaders had deservedly suffered. 
From Belgrade, where they entered the territories 
of the emperor Alexios, they pushed forward by 
Sofia, Philippopolis, and Adrianople, to Constanti- 
nople, reaching there two days before Christmas, 
after a march of not less than 1,450 miles. Here, 
in the neighborhood of the city, the winter was spent, 
waiting for the other crusading armies, and in con- 
stant, sometimes warlike, controversy with Alexios, 
who wished to be free of such troublesome guests. 



148 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

In these disputes the wisdom and firmness of Godfrey 
were conspicuously evidenced. 

By the spring of 1097 ^^^ ^^^ ready for the ad- 
vance. On May 6 the Christian army laid siege 
to the first city in Turkish territory, the ancient 
Nicaea, where Constantine had held the first general 
council in 325.^ The crusading host had no single 
commander, but, on June 19, Nicaea surrendered to 
Alexios, justly hoping to be better treated by him 
than by the Crusaders, and the first success of the 
expedition was achieved. Thence the army marched 
diagonally across Asia Minor toward the ancient 
province of Cilicia. At Dorylaeum, about 180 miles 
from Constantinople, what seemed at first a defeat 
was turned, on July i, into a great crusading victory 
that opened free way for the further march of the 
army. But thenceforward nearly till Iconium was 
reached, it suffered terrible losses from hunger and 
thirst under the scorching summer sun. Thence, 
by a long circle to the northeast through the ancient 
Cappadocian Caesarea (Kaisariyeh and Marash), 
they journeyed, till on October 20, 1097, they reached 
Antioch, where the disciples had first been called 
Christians,^ the strongest city of Syria. 

Such a place would have been formidable to any 
army before the use of canon. To the Crusaders, 
unaccustomed to large cities, it seemed an almost 
insurmountable obstacle. With its sieges and the 

I Ante, p. 51. ' Acts 11: 26. 



GODFREY 149 

successful repulse of the Turkish army that came to 
its relief the highest military achievements of the 
Crusade were associated. By immense effort the 
Christian forces carried on the siege from October, 
1097, to the following June, and even then would not 
have become masters of the city had it not been for 
the aid of one of its inhabitants who enabled them 
to effect a lodgment on its lofty walls. Its capture 
was none too soon, for the Turkish sultan, Kerboga 
of Mossul, was on his way with an immense relieving 
army. Most courageously delayed at Edessa by the 
pluck of Godfrey's brother, Baldwin, Kerboga did 
not reach Antioch till two days after its capture 
(June 5). The Christians now found themselves 
besieged in the city which had so recently fallen into 
their hands. With little food, and surrounded by an 
immense army, many now gave themselves up to de- 
spair; but the enthusiasm of others was heightened. 
Men believed they saw visions in which Christ and 
the saints promised help. It was thought that the 
very lance head that pierced the Savior's side as he 
hung on the cross was found beneath the floor of the 
Church of St. Peter and would bring sure victory. 
Thus encouraged, the host marched out, in desperate 
effort, and on June 28, in a tremendous battle, put 
Kerboga and his Moslem army completely to flight. 
In all this Godfrey bore his full share, but his 
part was not as distinguished as that of Bohemond or 
Tancred. Godfrey, however, had in mind more 



150 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

than any of the other leaders the main purpose of 
the Crusade, and while Bohemond and Raymond 
quarreled as to whose Antioch should be, and the 
Christian leaders tried to make conquests in its vicin- 
ity, he urged an advance on Jerusalem. It was not 
till May, 1099, however, that the army started. On 
June 7 it was in sight of the Holy City. It had seen 
tremendous fighting and had accomplished a march 
since the Crusade began of not less than 2,500 miles. 
As rank after rank beheld Jerusalem the Crusaders 
fell on their knees in gratitude that the goal of their 
pilgrimage was so close at hand. But severe contest 
was needful before the city was theirs. Jerusalem is 
strong of situation and was bravely defended. On 
July 15, the Crusaders, Godfrey among the fkst, 
e£fected a lodgment on the wall, and Jerusalem was 
soon theirs. Mercy was no thought of the victors. 
The Mohammedan inhabitants were slain; and their 
bloody work accomplished, the Crusaders marched 
in penitential thanksgiving to the Church of the Holy 
Sepulcher. The work was done. The goal was 
reached, which had cost such suffering and so many 
lives. It remained now to provide for the govern- 
ment and defense of the Holy Land, and for the 
majority of the surviving Crusaders to seek the homes 
that they had left three years before. 

On July 22, 1099, the leaders at Jerusalem unani- 
mously chose Godfrey as head of the new state. He 
took for his title "Protector of the Holy Sepulcher." 



GODFREY 151 

There was in him that which commanded general 
trust. His modesty, his steadfastness, his courage, 
his simple piety, all commended him, and of all the 
leaders it was most fitting that he should keep what 
had been won. One task remained to be done before 
the main body of the Crusaders could depart. The 
Moslem ruler of Egypt was sending a large army to 
avenge the capture of Jerusalem. On August 12, it 
was wholly defeated near Ascalon, and the last great 
danger that threatened the new conquests of the 
Crusaders was overcome. The Christian territories, 
divided in feudal fashion under princes, counts, and 
barons, now stretched from Tarsus and Edessa on 
the north to the southern borders of ancient Philistia 
on the south — a realm greater than that of David. 

Godfrey did not long survive his entrance on his 
new and responsible office. On July 18, iioo, he 
died, universally lamented, and was buried in the 
Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. He 
was succeeded by his brother, Baldwin I (i 100-18), 
who did not hesitate to take the kingly title. The 
region so hardly won could not be held save by con- 
stant fighting; and a steady stream of knights and 
humbler folk poured from the West to the Holy 
Land, most of whom gave their lives in the cause, or 
perished from the hardships and illnesses incident 
to the journey. To aid in the defense of the sacred 
places, a military order, pledged to monastic vows 
and to fight for the Christian possessions in the 



152 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

Orient, the Templars, was organized in 1118; and 
soon after 1130 a brotherhood founded for the care 
of the ill in Jerusalem, the Hospitallers, or Knights 
of St. John, was reorganized with a similar aim. In 
1198 the Teutonic Knights were established. These 
orders attracted the gifts of hundreds at home who 
could not themselves take part in a crusade, but who 
could thus share in the cause as those now interested 
in missions may do by the support of missionary 
societies. 

The Holy Land was pressed hard by the Moslems. 
From 1 147 to 1149 a second great crusade under 
Conrad III of Germany and Louis VII of France 
sought its relief; but failed miserably in Asia Minor 
and before Damascus. In October, 1187, the Mo- 
hammedan leader, Saladin, took Jerusalem from the 
Christians who had held it since 1099. A third great 
crusade, led by Frederick Barbarossa of Germany, 
Philip II of France, and Richard Coeur de Lion of 
England, sought to regain it ; but wholly failed. The 
crusading spirit was now largely spent, though sub- 
sequent expeditions took place, some of them on a 
large scale. None had, however, the enthusiam and 
success of the First Crusade. The zeal for the Holy 
Land gradually died out, and, in 1291, the Christians 
lost the last of their hard-won possessions on the 
mainland of Palestine. 

, The crusading movement was the highest exempli- 
fication of the Hildebrandian idea of the church. 



GODFREY 153 

All Christendom, aroused by the pope as its spiritual 
head, should lay aside its woridly interests and strive 
for the rescue of the holy places. But the appeal of 
the movement was to a feeling far deeper than honor 
for the papacy or obedience to its call. It was the 
desire to draw near to Christ by following in his 
earthly footseps that animated such a man as God- 
frey to suffer and to dare. We may hold that the 
Crusades showed little appreciation of the real spirit 
of Christianity ; but we cannot understand the Chris- 
tianity of their age without seeing in them a great 
embodiment of the conception of the religious life 
then prevalent. 

Viewed narrowly in the light of what they directly 
accomplished, the Crusades were a failure. They 
cost the lives of thousands. They failed permanently 
to hold the Holy Land. But their effect on the intel- 
lectual life of Europe was worth all they cost. They 
broke up the isolation which had prevailed since the 
Germanic invasions. They united western Europe in 
a common enterprise. They opened men's eyes to 
the world as they revealed the splendid cities and the 
civilization of the East. They aroused Italian com- 
merce, and made the revived influence of that land 
possible. The century and a half which followed their 
beginning saw an awakening of Europe, religiously, 
intellectually, and artistically, which, though much 
less thorough, can only be compared with that which 
took place in the closing years of the fifteenth and 



154 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

the first half of the sixteenth centuries, when a similar 
enlargement of men's mental outlook was to be 
effected by the revival of learning, the discovery of 
the New World, and the opening of the sea route to 
India. The beginnings of some features of this 
awakening, indeed, antedated the Crusades, but all 
received powerful influence from that great enter- 
prise. 

QUESTIONS 

1. With whom did the idea of a crusade originate? Why 
was it not then carried out ? 

2. What were the causes of the Crusades ? 

3. From whom, how, and when did the actual call to the 
First Crusade come? The response? 

4. What was the real share of Peter the Hermit ? What 
has been ascribed to him ? 

5. From what regions did the main armies come ? 

6. What was the^parly history of Godfrey of Bouillon ? 

7. What were Jthe preparations made for the Crusade? 
Describe its march. Nicaea ? Dorylaeum ? Antioch ? 

8. How was the Crusade hindered by internal causes ? 

9. What share did Godfrey have in the capture of Jerusa- 
lem? To what office was he chosen? How long did he 
serve ? His death ? His character ? 

10. What were the military orders? How were they sup- 
ported ? 

11. Were there other crusades? What was the ultimate 
fate of Palestine ? 

12. What do the Crusades illustrate? Their value? 



GODFREY 155 

ADDITIONAL READING 

James M. Ludlow, The Age of the Crusades (New York, 1896). 
Ephraim Emerton, Mediaeval Europe (Boston, 1894), pp. 357- 

97- 

G. W. Cox, The Crusades ("Epochs of History" Series) 

(Boston, 1874). 
Schaff (continued by David S. Schaff), History of the Christian 

Church (New York, 1907), V, Pt. I, 211-307. 



FRANCIS 



IX 
FRANCIS 

In following the experiences of a crusader such as 
Godfrey one aspect of the religious life of the Middle 
Ages has been considered. It would be a mistake 
to suppose that the only type, or to conclude that the 
churchly ideal of a Hildebrand or an Urban II, was 
the only form in which religion appeared. Besides, 
and not infrequently antagonistic to the largely po- 
litical conceptions of the popes and high clergy, there 
was widely manifested a relatively simple religious 
spirit that sought to find its expression in a literal 
acceptance of what it believed to be Christ's com- 
mands and an imitation of his life. The age was 
crude. Its conception of religion was ascetic; and 
the only kind of imitation of Christ and the apostles 
which most men could grasp was an imitation in 
externals. Christ and his disciples had been poor. 
'* Apostolic poverty" was therefore a mark of the 
truly consecrated life. He never married. The 
disciples should so imitate him. He sent forth his 
disciples two by two, to preach, wearing sandals, 
without money, and depending on the gifts of their 
hearers for their support. So his disciples should 
now go. He told them to use a fixed form of prayer. 
That should constitute their only public petition. He 
forbade them to swear. They should take no oaths. 

159 



l6o GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

Probably there has never been a time when the 
Sermon on the Mount and Christ's commands to the 
apostles,' interpreted in the most literal fashion, 
seemed to so many earnest souls the charter of con- 
duct, however inferior their actual practice might be. 
Nor was the feeling of Christian men different in that 
age from what it is now. They and we alike desire to 
imitate Christ; but we see that real imitation is like- 
ness of spirit. That age grasped such imitation im- 
perfectly. To be like him and the apostles in the 
circumstances of their lives was what men could most 
easily conceive. 

It was evident that, if "apostolic poverty" is the 
Christian ideal, the rich prelates and the monks in 
wealthy cloisters were not living the Christian life. 
So many thought; and the result was not merely the 
inauguration of many reform movements in the 
church itself, but of sects that broke or were driven 
from its communion, and a widespread revival of 
ancient Manichaean or Gnostic speculations with 
their denunciation of all that savored of the material 
world as evil. 

Of these movements that most foreign to the 
genius of Christianity, though holding itself Chris- 
tian, was known as that of the Cathari. Though 
Manichaeanism, such as existed in Augustine's 
time,^ probably persisted in western Christendom, 

I Matt., chaps. 5 to 7; 10: 1-13; Luke 9: 1-6. 
a Ante, p. 69. 



FRANCIS i6i 

the main impulse toward Catharite views seems to 
have come into France, Italy, and Germany, nearly 
a century before the Crusades, from the Orient. 
Like the ancient Manichaeans, the Cathari held that 
the universe is the scene of eternal conflict between 
two powers, the one good, the other evil. Matter is 
the work of the evil power. The Old Testament is 
largely his book. The good God, revealed by Christ, 
is to be served spiritually, by simple worship, without 
elaborate churches or ritual, and by abstinence as 
far as possible from defiling contact with the world 
of matter through marriage, landed possessions, or 
the eating of flesh. Stimulated by the religious inter- 
est awakened in the crusading age, the Cathari grew 
rapidly, becoming the most powerful party in many 
sections of southern France, where they were known 
as " Albigenses" from the city of Albi. In Italy, too, 
they were strongly represented, controlling the gov- 
ernment of Assisi, for instance, for a time when Fran- 
cis was a young man. To the Roman church they 
were an immense peril; and after more than half a 
century of sporadic, and mostly vain, attempts to 
win them back by missionary effort, they were/ 
crushed in France by mihtary force, through the 
combined efforts of the church and the French mon- 
archy (1209-29). Their political collapse, in 1229, 
was followed by the more complete establishment of 
the Inquisition for their uprooting; and, since they 
had made much use of the Bible in defense of their 



1 62 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

position, by the prohibition of the reading of trans- 
lations of the Scriptures.' 

The Catharite movement was fundamentally hos- 
tile to Christianity. Not so the Waldensian. It was 
simply an earnest attempt to live the Christlike life, 
and intentionally within the church. Valdez, or 
Waldo, was a wealthy merchant of Lyons in France. 
Awakened religiously, he was moved, in ii73,by the 
legends of the saints, and especially by Christ's direc- 
tions to the rich young man,^ to give his property to the 
poor. He now obtained translations of the gospels 
and some other books of the Bible, gathered a few 
disciples about him, and felt himself called with his 
friends to carry out Christ's injunctions to the apos- 
tles, ^ by going throughout the country, without 
money or shoes, proclaiming Christ's message and 
dependent on the gifts of those to whom he preached. 
He had no thought of hostility toward the ecclesias- 
tical authorities. Beginning this mission in 1178, 
he sought the approval of Pope Alexander III, and 
of the third Lateran Council at Rome in 11 79. Here 
he was not judged a heretic, but he and his followers 
were thought ignorant laymen and ordered not to 
preach without ecclesiastical permission. To Valdez 
not to preach was to disobey Christ. He persisted; 
and, in 1184, the Waldenses were excomniunicated 

I For scriptural excuse for this prohibition, see II Peter 3 : 16. 

a Mark 10:21. 

3 Matt. 10:5-14; Luke 9:1-6. 



FRANCIS 163 

by Pope Lucius III. A little more than twenty years 
later, Pope Innocent III, seeing the mistake of his 
predecessor, tried to draw the Waldenses as a preach- 
ing association into the Roman church; but it was 
too late. They grew and spread, being represented 
not merely in eastern France but in northern Italy, 
and ultimately in Germany. As they developed they 
came more and more to feel that no teaching but that 
of Christ was binding, and to reject all in the Roman 
church for which they could not find clear scriptural 
warrant. Yet they were slow in forming a church 
for themselves. They consisted of an inner circle, the 
society proper, bound by monastic vows, and wor- 
shiping by simpler services, and an outer body of 
"friends" who still remained in the Roman commun- 
ion, but from whom the society was recruited and by 
whom it was supported. Pressed by persecution, the 
Waldenses were driven into the high valleys of the 
Alps west of Turin, where they maintained their inde- 
pendence. They became fully Protestant at the 
Reformation, still exist in vigor, and now that reli- 
gious freedom has been established in Italy, carry on 
Christian work in its chief cities. 

All these movements, notably that of the Waldenses, 
were not merely ascetic, but semi-monastic in form. 
But their monasticism differed from the older types in 
two important particulars. Earlier monasticism em- 
phasized separation from the world. Its aim was to 
seek personal salvation. Though it had engaged in 



i64 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

much missionary work when established, it was es- 
sentially aristocratic, even if its recruits were from 
all classes of society. The new movements, especi- 
ally that of the Waldenses, had for their aim work 
for others. They affiliated with the common people. 
They were fundamentally democratic. They intro- 
duced a new purpose into monastic life. What Valdez 
attempted, and that for which he was most un- 
wisely driven from the Roman church, was taken up 
into the service of that church by a Spaniard, Domi- 
nick (1170-1221), the founder of the "Order of the 
Preachers," or Dominicans, and especially by Fran- 
cis of Assisi, the man who in the judgment ot his age 
lived nearest of all men like Christ, and who was 
therefore the most typical mediaeval saint. Francis, 
or as he was baptized, John, Bernardone, was born in 
1 182, in Assisi, a little Umbrian city, about eighty- 
five miles north of Rome. His father, Peter, was a 
wealthy cloth merchant. From boyhood, Francis 
showed himself a leader, but at first with no intima- 
tion of interest in religion, for it was as a leader of the 
young men of the city, associated in a kind of club 
for riotous amusement, that he first won distinction. 
Of learning he had comparatively little. Assisi was 
distracted by quarrels between the aristocrats and 
common people, and the former, being worsted in 
1202, called in the aid of the citizens of Perugia, only 
thirteen miles distant, but, such was the distracted 
condition of Italian politics, a bitter rival of Francis' 



FRANCIS 165 

native town. In the battle that followed Francis 
fought on the popular side, and, the Assisan forces 
being beaten, he was taken a prisoner of war to 
Perugia, where he remained a year. Even now he 
was distinguished for his cheerfulness and courage. 
His return from this imprisonment was followed by 
a severe illness. Recovered, he was more earnest in 
purpose than he had thus far been, but not yet deter- 
mined to devote himself to the Christian life, for he 
now decided to seek a soldier's career in southern 
Italy. He started on this quest, but only to abandon 
it when a few miles from Assisi and to return to his 
home. His conversion was beginning, however. 
With Francis it was no sudden change, but a gradual 
process. His sympathy went out to the poor. He 
gave largely of his means to their relief; but even 
more largely of his interest and personal help. He 
cared for the sick, even for the lepers whom most 
shunned. At Rome, on a pilgrimage, he borrowed a 
beggar's clothes, and supplicated his food that he 
might understand the lot of the unfortunate. He 
meditated and prayed much in solitude. He believed 
that he heard a divine call to ''restore the fallen 
church of God." Taking the vision literally, he sold 
his horse and some pieces of cloth, and offered the 
sum thus obtained to rebuild the chapel of St. Da- 
mian. Francis' father had long been disgusted by 
what he deemed his son's unbusiness-like ways and 
had used even force to win him back. This act 



1 66 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

seemed to him the climax. In the quarrel that fol- 
lowed, Francis was summoned before the bishop, and 
now formally renounced to his father not merely the 
money, but his clothing, declaring that henceforth he 
had no father but the Father in heaven. Men derided 
him as insane, but he persisted with unabated courage. 
For about two years after this event Francis la- 
bored with his own hands and by begging aid for the 
restoration not only of St. Damian but of the Por- 
tiuncula and other chapels near Assisi. In 1 209, how- 
ever, a larger vision of his work came to him. He 
heard read from the gospels that command of Christ 
to the apostles to preach the good news of the King- 
dom which had once made such an impression on 
Valdez. At once he began to put it into practice. 
His message was to living men in the name of Christ. 
Soon he gathered a few associates, kindled by his 
enthusiasm. In a few months they grew to eleven 
in number. In their " apostolic poverty " they should 
go, clad only in a long robe of undyed wool bound at 
the waist by a bit of rope. Two by two the new 
preachers went, with singing and much expression of 
happiness, not merely as those who were serving 
Christ, but who found all God's creatures their 
friends. This appreciation of nature as God's work, 
and therefore to be loved and desired, was one of the 
most remarkable of Francis' characteristics, fanciful 
as was often the form in which it expressed itself. 
In "brother sun" and ''brother fire" he saw, no less 



FRANCIS 167 

than in his fellow-men, God's servants and therefore 
his brethren. Among men, Francis felt that his 
work was primarily for the neediest and lowliest. 
His own association was of ''humble" brethren, a 
term that of itself implied affiliation with the lower 
rather than the higher social classes. It was to the 
people little in the world's regard, the poor, the sick, 
the lowly, that he was to go in "apostolic poverty," 
with the message of repentance. 

For this little brotherhood Francis prepared in 
1209 a simple "Rule," not now existent; but con- 
taining little more than Christ's injunction to take up 
the cross, his advice to the rich young man, and his 
directions to the apostles; and, also, brief regula- 
tions regarding fasting, humble carriage toward all 
men in imitation of Christ's humiliation, and speak- 
ing and living as good Catholics, for Francis was 
anxious to serve the church and to recognize the 
authority of its officers. With this "Rule" he and 
his companions went to Pope Innocent III. It was 
almost exactly the same proposal with which Valdez 
had vainly approached Pope Alexander III in 11 79; 
but times had changed. Innocent III saw the mis- 
take which his predecessor had made; he had just 
been engaged in trying to persuade some of the 
Waldenses to return to the Roman church. Under 
such circumstances it is not surprising that Francis' 
fate was very unlike that of Valdez, and that; Inno- 
cent III, most wisely, gave his approval to the 



1 68 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

work. It was still a wholly simple association of 
those who would live and preach as Jesus taught; 
but it was now approved by the pope (1210) and by 
papal injunction had in Francis a responsible head 
with whom the ecclesiastical authorities could deal. 
The first step toward the Franciscan order had been 
taken. 

In little huts grouped round the church known as 
Portiuncula near Assisi the brethren had their first 
headquarters. Here at each Pentecost they gathered 
to relate their experiences and strengthen themselves 
for their work. From this meeting the annual '' gen- 
eral chapter" was soon to grow. But Portiuncula 
was simply their center. Thence they went forth to 
preach, to aid the poor, nurse the sick, and care for 
the neglected. They were to help the peasants in 
the fields, to work in return for food and lodging; 
but to take no money, and to beg only in illness or 
incapacity. It was a working, helpful association, 
not a mendicant order that Francis planned. 

Francis' followers rapidly multiplied, and were 
not confined to his own sex. Impressed by a fiery 
sermon on the duty of forsaking all to follow Christ, 
a girl of eighteen, of noble lineage, Clara Scifi, dedi- 
cated herself to a similar work; and her vows were 
received by Francis himself in the Portiuncula 
church on March 18, 12 12. With her the nuns of 
the Franciscan order, or Clarissines, had their begin- 
ning. Francis himself preached widely through 



FRANCIS 169 

Italy, and soon his disciples were carrying his work 
not merely throughout the peninsula, but to Spain, 
France, Hungary, and Germany. Such a man 
could not be possessed of a burning desire to bring 
disciples to his Master without his heart going forth 
in love to those who rejected the lordship of Christ. 
Francis would lead in foreign missions. The cru- 
sading expedition of 12 19 to Egypt gave him his 
opportunity. With eleven companions he accom- 
panied the army, and even preached before the 
sultan, by whom his courage and sincerity were 
respected. The converts from Mohammedanism 
that he desired were not made — he had too little 
preparation for the work — ^but his own consecration 
of spirit was abundantly revealed. From Egypt he 
visited the holy places in Palestine, and it was only 
after an absence of more than a year (June, 12 19, to 
July, 1220) that he again saw Italy. 

During this absence serious changes took place 
in the association, part of which were inevitable. It 
was growing rapidly. Its very popularity was a 
peril to its original ideals. The simple enthusiasm 
for the life of "apostolic poverty," and strict obe- 
dience to Christ, the motive spring of which was love, 
was hard to maintain as numbers increased. The 
need of organization, rules, and careful supervision 
grew in proportion to the enlargement of the body. 
It is always thus. The enthusiasm of the few can 
be carried to the many only in greatly weakened 



I70 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

form, and with the many, organization must attempt 
to make good the defect. Then, too, the ecclesiasti- 
cal authorities, notably Cardinal Ugolino, the later 
Pope Gregory IX, who soon became by appointment 
of Pope Honorius III the "protector" of the asso- 
ciation, saw the possibilities of the movement as an 
aid to the papacy and the advancement of the 
interests of the Roman church, where its authority 
had been undermined by Cathari, Waldenses, and 
other "heretics." A society of three thousand mem- 
bers, as that of Francis had grown, to be, was very 
different from a little company of eleven like-minded 
enthusiasts. 

Its development into a full monastic order went 
rapidly forward. A bull of Pope Honorius III, of 
September, 1220, regulated entrance, required per- 
petual observance of vows, and placed the monks 
under the strict command of their superiors. A new 
"Rule," in which Francis had some share, but on 
which others labored, was issued in 1221 ; only to be 
replaced by another, prepared chiefly by Cardinal 
Ugolino, two years later. This revised rule made I 
begging a fundamental characteristic of the order^ 
In it the eager reference to Christ's commands, 
which marked the earlier "Rule," became a series of 
relatively minute and legalistic regulations, charac- 
teristic of the spirit of monasticism in general. It 
was more ecclesiastical, less free and fresh-spirited. 
Among the brethren themselves, moreover, two tend- 



FRANCIS 171 

encies appeared, the one to preserve, and if any- 
thing to increase, the ascetic inclinations rather than 
the loving spirit of the founder; the other toward a 
laxer interpretation of his conception of Christlike 
poverty, and an emphasis on organization, mechan- 
ical discipline, and the development of a great monas- 
tic body. Francis himself was no organizer. He 
was a preacher, a lover of his fellow-men, and an 
enthusiastic disciple of his Master. Elias of Cortona, 
his friend and associate, possessed the administrative 
talents which he lacked, without his enthusiastic 
spiritual insight, and with decided inclination to the 
more worldly of the two tendencies within the order 
of which mention has been made. The reins had 
fallen by 1220 from Francis' hands, and from 1223 
Elias was the controlling spirit. The tendencies were 
at work which were to lead to long-persisting quar- 
rels between the stricter and looser elements in the 
order. 

Francis' last years were, therefore, filled with grief 
and apprehension. He saw the ideal of his associa- 
tion changing. He feared the spread of worldliness 
in the order. He dreaded the growth of devotion to 
learning, lest the service of the poor and lowly should 
be supplanted by it. He spoke forth his anxiety in 
bitterness of spirit. Broken in health from the time 
of his return from his mission to the East, he with- 
drew more and more from the activities of life. He 
sang his praises to God, he prayed, he fasted, he was 



172 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

much alone in ecstatic meditation. In one of these 
long vigils, in 1224, there appeared on his body the 
• marks of the Savior's wounds, constituting in his own 
thought an honor similar to that which he beheved 
the apostle Paul to have received.^ The fact of these 
I ''stigmata" is assured; the question of how they came 
i to be is more difficult. The best solution seems to lie 
in that but partially understood influence of the mind, 
dwelling intensely on a desired experience, on a body 
enfeebled by extreme asceticism. As his end grew 
near, Francis had himself carried to the vicinity of his 
beloved church of Portiuncula, and in it he died in 
full humility and triumphant peace on October 3, 
1226. He was of his age and race in many of the 
circumstances of his career; but he belongs to all the 
Christian centuries in spirit, for he tried in utmost 
love and humility to live the very life of Christian 
discipleship as he believed Christ taught his first 
followers to live it. 

Much as the order which he founded departed 
from his ideal, it was a great power for good in the 
Roman church for more than a century after his 
death, and remains in usefulness to this day. It 
spread with marvelous rapidity throughout Europe, 
welcomed by the common people, to whom its friars 
came as preachers and as helpers. It did much for 

I Gal. 6: 17, where the reference is probably not to the wounds 
Christ received on the cross, but to disfigurements resulting from 
stoning at Lystra, Acts 14: 19. 



FRANCIS 173 

the unchurched and neglected in the cities. It pre- 
sented a democratic conception of monasticism, in 
contrast to the essential aristocracy of the older 
orders. To a large degree it was true to the prin- 
ciple that in work for others rather than for oneself 
lies the highest value of the Christian life. For the 
Roman church and the papacy the Franciscan order 
was of utmost usefulness. It and the Dominican 
body largely won back the popular support which 
had seemed to be slipping away from the church. 
They presented a type of piety that appealed to the 
best men of the age. They took up into the service 
of the church that which had most attracted men 
in the Cathari and Waldenses, and by so doing 
overcame the opposition which had given to those 
"heretical" movements their chief support. They 
profoundly deepened and quickened the popular 
religious life. 

QUESTIONS 

1. How did men of the twelfth century conceive of imitat- 
ing Christ? What did they mean by "apostolic poverty" ? 

2. What was the result of this valuation of "apostolic 
poverty "on men's attitude toward the rich prelates and the 
wealthy monasteries? Was the period one of many sects? 

3. Who were the Cathari? Their beliefs? How were 
they suppressed ? 

4. Who was Valdez, when did he live, how was he con- 
verted, and what did he attempt? How was he treated by 
the Roman church ? Who were and are the Waldenses ? 

5. What new methods and spirit did these protesters repre- 



174 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

sent, and by whom were these principles taken up into the 
service of the Roman church ? 

6. Outline the early life of Francis. His birthplace, 
parentage, youth, captivity? 

7. Describe the nature of Francis' conversion. What 
spirit animated him ? What text impressed him ? 

8. How did Francis conceive of the Christian life ? What 
were the original purposes of his brotherhood? Its earliest 
"Rule"? 

9. Give some account of Clara Scifi, and of the founding 
of the Clarissines. 

10. How did Francis attempt to engage in foreign mis- 
sions ? 

11. How were the original ideals of Francis' association 
transformed ? Was this change unavoidable ? The "Rules" 
of 1221 and 1223 ? Francis' feeling toward these changes? 

12. Francis' last years? Their occupations ? The "stig- 
mata"? His death? His character ? 

13. The influence of the Franciscan order? 

ADDITIONAL READING 

Paul Saba tier. Life of St. Francis of Assisi (English trans- 
lation) (New York, 1894). 

J. W. Knox-Little, Saint Francis of Assisi, His Times, Life, 
and Work (London, 1897). 

SchafiF (continued by David S. SchafE), History of the Christian 
Church (New York, 1907), V, Pt. I, 379-533. 



THOMAS AQUINAS 



X 

THOMAS AQUINAS 

The consideration already given to Godfrey and 
to Francis has shown something of two very unHke 
aspects of the religious life of the crusading period. 
With Aquinas we turn to a third feature of the age, 
its theological learning. The intellectual efforts of 
The Middle Ages have often been unduly belittled, 
and the title given to them — that of "Scholasticism" 
— interpreted so as to imply an undeserved contempt. 
The aim of the schoolmen was not, indeed, a free 
inquiry as to the truth or falsity of the Christian 
religion, as if that were a matter open to debate. 
The chief doctrines of the faith were regarded as 
fixed ; and the object of discussion was to show their 
reasonableness and to explain their philosophic im- 
pHcations. But, under this apparent rigidity, an 
immense amount of freedom of discussion was actu- 
ally enjoyed, objections of the most weighty character 
were stated and answered, and the whole field of 
systematic theology was carefully investigated. It 
was a noble attempt to explain and interpret the 
great doctrines of the Christian faith. 

The intellectual stagnation consequent upon the 
collapse of the ancient Roman world through the 
Germanic invasions was nowhere more evident or 

177 



178 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

more slowly overcome than in the domain of theologi- 
cal speculation. While many doctrines were modi- 
fied in the early Middle Ages by what may be called 
the general spirit of the time, conscious discussion of 
theology, as far as it existed, was essentially a repro- 
duction of the positions of the great teachers of the 
declining Roman Empire. But with the gradual 
increase of enlightenment, this branch of intel- 
lectual activity was stimulated also, and in the period 
of the First Crusade there appeared in Anselm 
(1033-1109), the Italian-born Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, a theologian who gave a new and influential 
interpretation to the doctrine of the atonement, who 
presented an impressive demonstration of the exist- 
ence of God, and deserved to be called "the father 
of the schoolmen." 

In Abelard (1079-1142), who taught in Paris, 
scholasticism was represented by a great critic, whose 
free handling of the current theology shocked many 
of his contemporaries, but undoubtedly stimulated 
inquiry by its defense of the rights of intellectual 
investigation as against dependence on traditional 
authority. This tendency found a vigorous oppo- 
nent in Bernhard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), the 
greatest preacher of his age, and one of the noblest 
characters of church history, whose own deep mysti- 
cal piety was nourished and developed by that of 
Augustine, but who had a much clearer conception 
of justification by faith alone than the great African 



THOMAS AQUINAS 179 

theologian, so that Luther was to be profoundly in- 
fluenced by him. It is easy to see, however, that the 
desire to know truth scientifically, and to feel it 
religiously — the intellectual and the mystical tend- 
encies — are not necessarily mutually exclusive. They 
were united in Bernhard's friend Hugo of St. Victor 
(1097 ?-ii4i), and even more in Peter Lombard 
(?-ii6o?), both of whom taught in Paris. The 
latter, a disciple both of Abelard and Hugo, combined 
the new and the old methods in his Four Books oj 
Sentences so skilfully that his work held its place 
as the main textbook of theological instruction till 
the Reformation. A collection of authoritative ex- 
tracts ("sentences") from the Bible and the Fathers 
was gathered, in the older fashion, but interpreted 
and explained by the new philosophic discussion. 
Thanks to the work of these men, the "new theology," 
as it was called, won its way, in spite of opposition; 
and by the middle of the twelfth century the scho- 
lastic, systematic treatment of Christian truth, as 
contrasted with the traditional acceptance of ancient 
statements, was fully developed. A great period of 
theological discussion was well begun. 

Some of these teachers had been connected with 
monastic or cathedral schools, others had been 
independent; but in many of the cities of Europe 
scholars were gathering about them and others like 
them. Various studies were preferred in different 
cities. Thus Paris and soon Oxford were centers 



l8o GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

of theology, Bologna of law, and Salerno of medi- 
cine. Shortly before 1200 a great change, however, 
began. In the Middle Ages each trade in a town 
was incorporated, and had its own laws and govern- 
ment. The whole body of teachers and scholars 
in a particular community were now similarly asso- 
ciated, and thus the "University" came into being. 
Of these probably the earliest except Bologna and 
Salerno, and certainly the most famous and influ- 
ential, was the University of Paris, the most cele- 
brated seat of theology in the later Middle Ages. In 

^ this institution, which became the model of many 
similar foundations, studies were begun under the 
faculty of arts, and continued under one of the three 
higher faculties of theology, law, or medicine. The 
universal use of Latin made it possible for teachers 
and students from all nations to share in the work, 
and soon the attendance was counted, in the larger 
institutions, by thousands. 

— Contemporary with this change in instruction 
through the development of universities, learning, 
and especially the discussion of theology, were given 
a great impetus by the revived knowledge of the 
Greek philosopher, Aristotle. Studied among the 
Mohammedans and Jews of Spain, Aristotle's writ- 
ings began to be influential by the beginning of the 
thirteenth century among Christian scholars, at first 
through Arabian and Jewish commentaries, and 
then by direct translation. Though the influence 



THOMAS AQUINAS i8i 

of Aristotle was looked upon with suspicion as too 
rationalistic by orthodox churchmen, who represented 
the traditional neo-Platonism of Augustine, his philo- 
sophic standpoint so approved itself that, by the 
middle of the thirteenth century, it was dominant 
in theologic investigation. The result was the golden 
age of scholasticism, illustrated in the work of a 
series of brilliant and profound thinkers, of whom 
the most conspicuous were Alexander of Hales (?- 
1245), an EngHsh-born teacher of Paris; Albertus 
Magnus (i 193-1280), a German, who labored prin- 
cipally in Cologne; Thomas Aquinas, an Italian of 
whom more will be said; Bonaventura (1221-74), 
likewise an Italian, who worked much in Paris; and 
Duns Scotus (1265 ?-i3o8), of English or possibly 
Scottish origin, who taught in Oxford and Paris. All 
the scholars just named were members of the Fran- 
ciscan ^^Dominic an orders, then representing the 
warmest type of religious life. All were men of 
character. All regarded the Bible as the final author- 
ity. While they differed much among themselves, all 
pursued essentially similar methods of investigation 
and presentation. Of them all, Aquinas was the 
first in clearness of presentation, and in the com- 
pleteness with which he made the Aristotelian phi- 
losophy subservient to the development of a great 
theological explanation of Christian truth. His aim 
was to show the reasonableness, naturalness, and 
verity of the Christian system, as then understood, 



l82 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

when explained in the light of the science of the age; 
and in its accomplishment he showed himself not 
merely the greatest theologian of the Middle Ages, but 
the classic exponent of Roman Catholic doctrine to 
the present day. 

Thomas was born in the castle of Rocca Sicca, 
near Aquino, from which place his father, Landulf, 
took the title of count, in 1225 or, less probably, 1227. 
Though thus Italian in origin, he was related to^some 
of the most eminent famihes of Europe. His father 
was a connection of the great German imperial house 
of Hohenstaufen, his mother traced her ancestry to 
the Norman Tancred who distinguished himself as a 
leader of the forces of southern Italy in the First 
Crusade. The family was in every way one of dis- 
tinction, and prominent in the political conflicts be- 
tween the popes and emperors. Monte Cassino, 
the mother monastery of the Benedictine order, ^ is 
only eight miles from Aquino, and thither Thomas 
was sent in childhood for education. Thence he 
went, while still in boyhood, to Naples ; and there fell 
under the influence of the Dominicans, th^ in the 
height of their early fame. Their zeal, their scholar- 
ship, and their self-denial all attracted him, and the 
eighteen-year-old boy determined to become a monk 
of the order. His family, who hoped for him a 
brilliant secular career, bitterly opposed this. He 
was imprisoned, worldly inducements, even tempta- 

I Ante, p. 108. 



THOMAS AQUINAS 183 

tions, were employed to turn his purpose; but he 
persisted, and, in 1244, he was admitted a Domini- 
can. His superior in the order perceived his scholas- 
tic promise, and soon sent him (1245) to Cologne to 
have the benefit of instruction by Albertus Magnus.' 
Here his large frame and silent manner made him 
rather the butt of the lighter-minded of his fellow- 
students, and he was nicknamed "the dumb ox;" 
but his teachers saw what was in him, and he now 
went with Albertus Magnus for further study to Paris. 
By 1248 he was teaching with great success as second 
in the school at Cologne, and four years later estab- 
lished himself in Paris, where his lectures were 
thronged, though the university refused to give him 
full standing among its teachers of theology till 1257, 
because of a jealous fear lest the mendicant orders 
should thus obtain a footing in its faculty. 

Such conspicuity in learning was accompanied, 
however, by great modesty. Splendid ecclesiastical 
posts were offered him, but Aquinas refused them 
all. He never forgot that he was a member of a 
preaching order, and his sermons were marked by 
great simplicity, directness, and effectiveness. His 
judgment was so sound and disinterested, even in 
worldly matters, that his advice was sought by nobles 
and princes. In all his work he sought divine 
guidance by prayer, and his piety was as unaffected 
as it was sincere. Summoned to Italy by Urban IV 

I Ante, p. 181. 



1 84 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

in 1 261, he taught in Rome, Pisa, Bologna, and again 
in Paris, till in 1272 he became professor in the Univer- 
sity of Naples. Gregory X invited him to the Council 
of Lyons, but the journey thither was never completed. 
He died on March 7, 1274, at the age probably of 
forty-nine, in the monastery of Fossa Nuova, only 
a few miles from the place of his birth. He was a 
noble example of the Christian scholar, humble, 
prayerful, teachable, yet profoundly learned, and 
universally recognized as of transcendent abilities as 
a teacher and an interpreter of Christian theology. 
Throughout these brief years of study, teaching 
preaching, and travel, which most men would have 
found exhaustingly filled by. these labors, Thomas 
was constantly busy with his pen ; and the fecundity 
displayed is amazing, his works filling no less than 
twenty-eight good-sized volumes.^ Nor is the qual- 
ity of his discussions less remarkable. He is the 
profoundest of the mediaeval scholars, and at the 
same time one of the most lucid in expression. In 
ethics Thomas is ranked by good judges as second 
only to Augustine in his contribution to the develop- 
ment of a scientific treatment of Christian morals. 
In government, even in so remote a subject as trade, 
his views command great historic interest. But 
speculative theology was to him the crown of all 
studies, and his ripest work is therefore the Sumina 

« E. g., in the Venice edition of 1787. The new Roman edi- 
tion, begun by Leo XIII, will have twenty-five volumes. 



THOMAS AQUINAS 185 

theologica^ his general view of the whole body of 
Christian belief. 

In its form the Summa is exceedingly mechanical, 
some 518 questions being treated in 2,652 articles, 
the discussion of each following the same order. 
The proposition presented is clearly defined and de- 
fended by authority and argument, the objections 
equally fairly stated and carefully answered. This 
form, whatever its defects, had the merits of thorough- 
ness and full consideration of opposing views. In 
his citation of authorities it is interesting to observe 
that Thomas regarded nothing but the Bible, and 
that literally understood, as conclusive. All the 
more striking, therefore, as showing how fully he 
was under the influence of the spirit of his age, it 
is that he is able to defend not only the whole 
of the traditional creed, but all important parts 
of contemporary churchly practice and of papal 
claim. 

Our space will permit but a hasty glance at the 
contents of this great outline of theology. The chief 
end of all investigation of religious truth, Thomas 
held, is to give knowledge of God, and of man's origin 
and destiny. Much can be known by the use of reason 
— natural theology — but full knowledge must have 
a higher source. It comes only by revelation from 
God himself. This revelation reason alone cannot 
reach. It cannot prove or disprove it. But revela- 
tion contains nothing contrary to reason, and reason 



l86 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

can show the weakness of the objections brought 
against its doctrines. 

This revelation, so necessary for man, is contained 
in the Bible. We accept it because the divine Spirit 
moves our hearts to credence as we read it, because 
of the miracles by which the message was accom- 
panied, because of the fulfilment of prophecy which 
it witnesses, and because of what it has done in the 
world. Yet its acceptance is not forced on our 
reason, even by these arguments, as are the demon- 
strations of mathematics. We believe because we 
trust the character of the divine Revealer whose 
Word the Bible is, and such belief is meritorious, for 
it is pleasing to God thus to be trusted. 

Aquinas next takes up the discussion of God's 
existence and nature, the Trmity, and divine Provi- 
dence, holding that the latter extends to all per- 
sons and events, and manifests itself, among 
various ways, in the predestination of some to 
eternal life, and the relegation of others to ever- 
lasting death. 

"^ The second part of the Summa treats of the nature 
of man. He was made for the vision and enjoyment 
of God; in these blessings his highest good is to be 
found. But this vision and enjoyment cannot be 
obtained without the possession of the three Chris- 
tian virtues of faith, hope, and love. The power to 
exercise these virtues is not man's by nature. His 
natural endowment extended to the attainment of 



THOMAS AQUINAS 187 

the four natural virtues, prudence, justice, courage, 
and self-control; but though these bring honor and 
a certain degree of happiness, so that he who prac- 
tices them is far worthier than he who does not, the 
natural virtues are inadequate to secure the vision of 
God. To enable him to practice the Christian virtues 
man, as originally created, was endowed with a "su- 
peradded gift," a divine bestowment of power that 
was in addition to his natural capacities. This gift 
Adam had, and lost for himself and all his descend- 
ants by his sin, thus leaving them incapable of the 
higher virtues. This sinful condition, this lack of 
original righteousness, is original sin, and has become 
the condition by his disobedience of all who are 
descended from Adam. 

The restoration of the lost gift, and with it the 
power to attain the Christian virtues, and ultimately 
to reach the blessed vision of God, is the work of 
Christ. God could, indeed, have restored men with- 
out that sacrifice, but it did not seem fitting or wise 
for him so to do. Christ, by his life and death of 
humble obedience, merited grace for us; he made 
satisfaction for our sins by taking their punishment 
upon himself; he wrought reconciliation between us 
and God. As a result of Christ's workj those who are 
the recipients of its benefits are justified — an instan- 
taneous experience made possible by God's wholly 
unmerited grace, involving faith on man's part, and 
bringing with it forgiveness of sins. But, as with 



i88 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

Augustine/ the most important element in the work 
of salvation thus begun is not the instantaneous 
remission of sins, but the constant infusion after 
justification of ''co-operating grace," whereby the 
Christian virtues — above all, love — are stimulated in 
the soul. By the aid to this co-operating grace, a 
Christian man is enabled to do works to which God 
is pleased to attach merit, and to reward with eternal 
life. Aquinas thus finds large room for a doctrine of 
''works," though holding that salvation is dependent 
on Christ and made possible only by the free grace 
of God. 

In one very important division of doctrine the 
schoolmen, and notably Thomas, greatly improved the 
work of Augustine in logical completeness — that of 
the sacraments. Augustine had taught that men are 
saved by God's grace, and yet only in the church.^ 
The exact connection of the two thoughts he had 
failed always to make clear. They were now brought 
into logical association by the doctrine that the grace 
won by Christ for men comes to them exclusively 
through the channel of divinely appointed sacraments 
placed in the keeping of the church. In Thomas' 
view, as in that of the schoolmen generally, this church 
is the visible, hierarchically organized Roman body, 
of which the pope is the head. Indeed, so convinced 
a defender of the papacy was he that he affirmed that 

I Ante, pp. 77, 79. 
» Ante, pp. 75, 76, 80. 



THOMAS AQUINAS 189 

submission to the pope is needful for salvation. To 
the priesthood an all-important position was assigned 
as the divinely appointed agents in the dispensation 
of the sacraments; and in the administration, recep- 
tion, and due use of the sacraments the most vital 
part of the religious life of the church was placed. 

According to Thomas, following Peter Lombard, 
the sacraments are seveain number, though not all are 
received by all Christians. To the normal adult dis- 
ciple five would be administered, Baptism^by which 
he is ingrafted into the body of Christ, and original sin 
is forgiven; Confirrnation, by which vows made in 
one's behalf in infant baptism are made one's own, 
and the graces of the Holy Spirit augmented; the 
Lord's Supper, by which the disciple receives the 
body and blood of Christ; Penance, by which his 
lapses are healed; and Extreme Unction, by which 
he is spiritually strengthened for the ordeal of death. 
Of these. Baptism and the Supper are the pre-emi- 
nent. Two further sacraments may come to some 
Christians : Marriage, and Ordination. By the lat- 
ter a spiritual power is imparted, notably to be the 
agent through whom the miracle of Christ's presence 
in the Lord's Supper is wrought. No layman pos- 
sesses this gift. The ordained priest, and he alone, it 
is, upon whose words of consecration God miracu- 
lously changes the bread and wine of the sacrament 
into the body and blood of Christ. 

Regarding two of these sacraments something more 



igo GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

should be said. The Lord's Supper was to Thomas, 
as it had long been to the church in general, the 
highest act of worship. In it Christ is really present, 
comes into fellowship with the believer, and is offered 
to the Father. It is not merely a communion in 
which the disciple partakes of Christ ; it is a sacrifice, 
continuing that of Christ on the cross, and inclining 
God to be gracious to those in whose behalf it is 
offered. In it the bread and wine are changed into 
the actual body and blood of Christ — a doctrine 
known as ''transubstantiation, " to which Thomas 
gave the classic presentation. 

Penance is the sacrament by which the lapses of 
the believer since baptism are healed. According 
to Thomas, it consists of three elements, contrition 
or sincere sorrow for the sin ; confession to the priest 
as the spiritual physician who can apply the appro- 
priate remedy and pronounce absolution; and satis- 
faction, by which the evil effects of the sin can be 
made good. Yet this doctrine of Penance was fur- 
ther modified by the practice of indulgences which 
had come into prominence in connection with the 
Crusades, and which Thomas, though with great 
caution, defends. In his exposition, the work of 
Christ has more than made satisfaction for human 
sin. The saints, also, have done meritorious deeds 
through God's co-operating grace. Hence a treasury 
of merit is laid up for the church in the sight of God, 
and its officers can transfer something from it, on 



THOMAS AQUINAS 191 

proper conditions, to those who have not sufficient 
merit of their own. 

At their deaths the wicked pass into hell. Those 
who, by faithful use of the means of grace, are fit 
for heaven go thither immediately; but the mass of 
mankind, who while Christian in desire, and parti- 
cipants in the sacraments, have followed Christ but 
imperfectly, will have further purification in pur- 
gatory before attaining heavenly blessedness. The 
church, as the body of Christ, whether on earth, in 
purgatory, or in heaven, is one; and on this unity 
of the church is grounded the doctrines of prayers to 
the saints and for the dead. As members of the one 
body the blessed in heaven are interested in the 
struggling souls on earth, and those in purgatory 
are not beyond the help of our intercession. The 
goal of all Christian hope is heaven, and its chief joy 
will consist in the vision, the comprehension, and the 
enjoyment of God. Then shall we know as we are 
known. 

Such in barest outline is the great theological 
system to which Thomas gave expression. Very 
little was original with him; but he gave to it its 
classic form. Here and there his definitions were 
altered by those who came after him. It was at- 
tacked in many subsidiary points by Duns Scotus 
and his successors. It profoundly influenced all the 
later Middle Ages. It is, for instance, the theologi- 
cal basis of Dante's Divine Comedy. By declaration 



192 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

of the late pope, Leo XIII, as recently as 1879, 
Thomas' expositions of theology and philosophy have 
been affirmed to be of the highest value as a guide 
to Christian theology. He is, therefore, a living 
force in a large portion of Christendom to the pres- 
ent day. 

QUESTIONS 

1. What was the aim and significance of scholasticism ? 

2. Who were Anselm? Abelard? Bernhard? Peter 
Lombard ? Their efforts ? 

3. How did the universities come into existence ? 

4. What was the influence of the revival of Aristotle ? 

5. Who were some of the great schoolmen of the thirteenth 
century ? To what monastic orders did they belong ? What 
inference can be drawn, in general, as to their piety ? Why ? 

6. Sketch the early life of Thomas Aquinas. His parent- 
age ? Of what order was he a member ? 

7. What was Aquinas' career as a teacher ? His death ? 
His character ? 

8. What was Aquinas' productivity as a writer? His 
Summa ? Its method ? 

9. What, according to Aquinas, is the object of theology? 
What are the sources of theology ? Why is revelation neces- 
sary? Why do we believe the Bible? Why is that belief 
meritorious ? 

10. Wherein does Aquinas find the highest good ? What 
virtues are necessary for its attainment? Are they man's 
by nature ? What did Adam lose ? 

11. How is Adam's loss restored to man? What is the 
effect of justification ? What the work of co-operating grace ? 

12. What is the importance of Aquinas' treatment of the 
sacraments? How many are there? 



THOMAS AQUINAS 193 

13. What is the value of the sacraments? The Lord's 
Supper ? Penance ? Indulgences ? 

14. What is his doctrine of purgatory? Of prayers to 
the saints and for the dead? Wherein is the blessedness of 
heaven ? 

15. What is the present significance of Aquinas ? 

ADDITIONAL READING 

W. J. Townsend, The Great Schoolmen of the Middle Ages 

(London, 1881), pp. 199-241. 
Schaff (continued by David S. Schaff), History of the Christian 

Church (New York, 1907), V, Pt. I, 659-77. 



JOHN WICLIF 



XI 
JOHN WICLIF 

The fourteenth century was an epoch of great 
changes. Mediaeval feudalism, with its strongly 
divisive spirit, was giving way to a new national 
feeling. A real sense of common unity of interest 
was beginning to be felt by the peoples of France, 
of England, and in less a degree of Germany. A 
new power was therefore rising, that of national life. 
It speedily entered into conflict with the papacy, and 
with momentous results. Though Boniface VIII 
asserted the extremest papal claims, and even de- 
clared in essential agreement with the teachings of 
Aquinas, in a bull of 1302,^ not only that the papacy 
ruled all secular princes, but that obedience to the 
pope is needful for salvation, he encountered the 
most determined opposition of the French king, 
Philip IV, and of the French people. So strong did 
the newly awakened French monarchy show itself, 
that from 1305 to 1377 the papacy itself left its 
ancient seat at Rome, and the popes lived for the 
most part in Avignon. All were Frenchmen, and 
were largely subservient to French political interests. 
One or two were men of low moral standards and 
almost purely secular ambitions. This transfer of 

I The bull Unam sanctam ecclesiam. 
197 



198 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

residence and submission to French influence lost 
the papacy much of its prestige in the rest of Europe, 
while the popes of this period carried their system 
of taxation to a height heretofore unexampled. The 
papacy never was more burdensome, but it had lost 
the leadership and high spiritual purpose which alone 
could make its burdens endurable. Men were be- 
ginning to criticize it from many points of view. 

The Franciscans and Dominicans had lost much 
of the zeal which had made them so useful in the 
years following their foundation, while the popes 
were supporting the looser element in them in laxer 
interpretation of the "rules." The character of the 
clergy was too often unworthy. Theology, which in 
the teachings of Aquinas had seemed a science 
solidly buttressed by philosophy, was now largely 
held to be philosophically improbable, to be accepted 
only because taught by the church. Religion was 
not declining; but the mediaeval institutions of re- 
ligion were more and more showing themselves inad- 
equate. Earnest men, like Dante^ and William of 
Occam, were opposing the claims of the papacy to 
control the state; and one bold voice, that of Mar- 
silius of Padua, in 1324,^ questioned the whole papal 
system; but they were yet relatively few, and the 
mediaeval scheme of doctrine, with its great hierarch- 

I In his De monarchia. 

a In his Defensor pacts, written when a professor in the Uni- 
versity of Paris. 



JOHN WICLIF 199 

ical structure, though inwardly weakened, stood ap- 
parently as strongly as ever. 

Yet in one region of Europe, before the fourteenth 
century came to a close, the most effective, if not the 
most logical, critic of the papacy that had yet ap- 
peared was to arise and to lead in a movement for 
reform of no little importance. This reformer was 
John Wiclif. England, thanks to its insular position 
and the direct relations of its kings since the time of 
William the Conqueror to the great land-holders, had 
possessed an unusual sense of solidarity of interest. 
The national feeling had there developed to a degree 
only comparable to that of France. Under Edward 
III, in 1339, England began the long war with 
France, incidents of which were to be the English 
victories of Cr^cy (1346) and Poitiers (1356). It was 
at the time that the papacy had its seat at Avignon, 
and was largely under French influences. Naturally 
the payment of taxes to such popes, and the appoint- 
ment by them of their French proteges to English 
ecclesiastical posts, were looked upon by a large 
party in England as aids to England's enemies. 
Statutes known as those of "Provisors" and ''Prae- 
munire" were passed by Parliament, in 135 1 and 
1353, intended to limit papal appointments and ap- 
peals to the papal courts; and, in 1366, Parliament 
refused to pay to the pope the taxes granted by King 
John in 1 2 13. It was this feeling of resistance to 
what seemed foreign aggression that Wiclif was to 



200 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

share, and it was to be the beginning from which he 
was to advance to far more radical criticisms of the 
papacy. 

John Wiclif was born probably in the village of 
Hipswell in the county of northern England known 
as Yorkshire, at some unknown date which has been 
conjectured to have been about 1324. Of his early 
life almost nothing is known, save that he went as a 
young student to Oxford, and gained great distinction 
there as a scholar and a teacher. When he emerges 
into the light of history it is as a man of high philo- 
sophical attainments, who departed from current 
theological conceptions in the direction of a renewed 
Augustinianism, such as Thomas of Bradwardine 
(i 290-1349) had made influential at Oxford. We 
shall see this in his emphasis on predestination, and 
his strong sense that religion is a relation of God to 
the individual human soul. 

It was not merely in Oxford that Wiclif had won 
distinction. In 1366 or 1367, as one of the chap- 
lains of Edward III, he put forth a vigorous defense 
of the action of Parliament, already mentioned, in 
refusing further payment of taxes to the pope. From 
this publication Wiclif s open opposition to papal 
encroachments may be dated. He soon followed it 
with others. By 1374 he had become a doctor of 
divinity. In April of that year he was nominated by 
the king to the pastorate of Lutterworth, and, in 
July, he was sent as a royal commissioner to treat 



JOHN WICLIF 201 

with the representatives of Pope Gregory XI, regard- 
ing the vexed question of ecclesiastical appointments 
in England. He was evidently in high favor at 
court. 

Thus far Wiclif had gone but little, if at all, farther 
in his criticisms than many of the Franciscans had 
done. His motives were opposition to the wealth and 
corruption of the church, and patriotic resistance to 
papal encroachments. His argument was curiously 
mediaeval. All authority is a ''lordship," a fief, held 
by its possessor from God, who is overlord of all. 
As a temporal fief, if misused, is forfeited, so spirit- 
ual lordships are vacated if not rightly employed, or 
if the holder is unfit. If an ecclesiastic is of bad 
character, in "mortal sin," or if he uses his office to 
accumulate riches or gain temporal power, things 
inconsistent with the purpose for which the ministry 
was established by Christ, his "lordship" is for- 
feited, and may be taken from him by the civil 
authorities. The enforcement of ecclesiastical claims 
by spiritual penalties, which in mediaeval practice 
would have followed such attempts to seize the 
possessions of the clergy, is not to be feared, since 
even the pope's excommunication is ineffective unless 
he against whom it is directed is really deserving of 
condemnation in the sight of God. Only the "law 
of Christ" as laid down in the New Testament is of 
final authority as a criterion of rightful action. In 
its last analysis the church consists only of the "pre- 



202 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

destinate;" but as they are not easily distinguished, 
the practical test is apparent conformity to the 
"law of Christ." 

These views commended Wiclif to the favor of the 
most powerful, but one of the least popular, of the 
English nobles, John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, 
fourth son of Edward III. John was without a 
spark of religious sympathy with Wiclif, but he 
headed a hungry party who thought to profit by de- 
spoiling the English church, and believed that in 
Wiclif he had one whom he could use as a tool for 
that purpose. John's support was to be a safeguard 
to Wiclif, but the latter was too profoundly rehgious 
to enter into real sympathy with that greedy noble's 
hopes, and probably too guileless wholly to fathom 
his plans. Thanks to this support, an attempt to 
bring Wiclif to trial before the Convocation of the 
Province of Canterbury, gathered in St. Paul's in 
London in February, 1377, utterly failed, the pro- 
ceedings being frustrated by an angry personal en- 
counter in the church between John of Gaunt and the 
Bishop of London. Gregory XI now issued five 
bulls condemning Wiclif s opinions in the matters of 
the withdrawal of property from its unworthy pos- 
sessors and excommunication, and comparing him 
with Marsilius of Padua. But court favor still served 
the reformer. Though Edward III died in June, 
1377, and John of Gaunt went into temporary politi- 
cal eclipse, the mother of the young king, Richard II, 



JOHN WICLIF 203 

proved Wiclif's friend, and through her aid an 
attempt of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the 
Bishop of London to discipline him was frustrated 
in 1378. For the next three years Wiclif was not 
molested. 

It was during these three years of comparative 
peace, apparently, that he achieved two of his great- 
est services. Convinced of the need of popular 
preaching, as Valdez and Francis had been before, 
and as John Wesley was to be in a later age, he now 
began sending out "poor priests," that is, unen- 
dowed preachers, not necessarily clergymen, who 
should proclaim the gospel in churches, in market- 
places, in the fields, wherever they could gather an 
audience. The condition of the lower classes of 
England was such as to secure them a ready hearing. 
That frightful pestilence known as the "black 
death "^ had ravaged England in 1348-49, 1361, and 
1369, and, especially in the first attack, had been 
terribly destructive. Probably half the population, 
possibly more, had perished. The whole labor sit- 
uation was unsettled for years by the consequent 
scarcity of workmen, and the attempts of Parliament 
to regulate work and wages by legislation. The 
lower classes of the population were in a state of 
profound discontent; and they listened eagerly to 

^ The same disease as that known as the "bubonic plague," 
and fatal at the present, 1908, in India. The unsanitary con- 
ditions of the Middle Ages made it destructive throughout Europe. 



204 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

Wiclif's "poor priests," whose denunciation of the 
wealth and arrogance of the high clergy, and asser- 
tion that the "law of Christ" demanded "humihty, 
love, and poverty" — to quote Wiclif's own phrase — 
found ready response. 

To aid these preachers, and to give to the people 
generally the Word of God which WicHf was con- 
vinced was the only final authority for the Christian, 
he now undertook with his friends the translation of 
the Scriptures from the Latin Vulgate into EngHsh. 
It was a time of much interest in the developing 
language. Sermons were being widely preached in 
it. Its use had recently been estabhshed in law- 
court practice. Wiclif was therefore following the 
spirit of the age in putting the Bible into the English 
tongue. Of the greatness of his service there can be 
no question. The gospels and Psalms had been 
translated or paraphrased repeatedly from early 
Anglo-Saxon times; but these versions had at best a 
very limited circulation. The new work, especially 
the New Testament which was from Wiclif's own 
pen, was idiomatic, forceful, readable. He gave the 
whole Bible to his nation; and, in so doing, not 
merely contributed to its religious development, but 
exercised a formative influence upon all subsequent 
English versions of the Scriptures, and upon the 
general growth of the EngHsh language. 

While engaged in this work during his three years 
of comparative peace, events were occurring which 



JOHN WICLIF 205 

caused Wiclif to advance to far more radical criti- 
cisms of the papacy than he had hitherto uttered. 
The death of Gregory XI in 1378 found the cardinals, 
a majority of whom were Frenchmen, at Rome. 
The pressure of the Roman populace and other in- 
fluences compelled the choice of an Italian pope. 
Urban VI; but that election the same cardinals re- 
pudiated a few months later and selected another 
head for the church in the person of Clement VII, 
who returned to Avignon. All Europe was distressed 
at the spectacle of two rivals in office, each with about 
an equal following. The French pope ultimately had 
the allegiance of France, Spain, Naples, and Scotland ; 
the Roman, of England, Germany, and most of Italy. 
The scandalous schism thus begun was to last till 
healed, after infinite labor, by the Council of Con- 
stance in 141 7. The sight of two popes mutually 
anathematizing each other, and proclaiming cru- 
sades, the one against the other, turned Wiclif now 
fully against the papacy. Could men so un-Christ- 
like in action be hving rightly according to "the law 
of Christ;" and if not so living, had they not for- 
feited their "lordship" ? He could but answer that 
such popes were "vicars of Anti-christ." But he 
now went farther. He criticized not the papacy only, 
but the whole priestly order which drew its income 
from revenues and endowments, the monks with 
their landed possessions, and even the mendicant 
friars, whom he had formerly favored, whose vow 



2o6 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

of poverty was so often really ignored. Applying the 
test of conformity to Scripture, Wiclif now rejected 
indulgences, a treasury of good works, private con- 
fession, the worship of saints, pilgrimages, and pur- 
gatory, and asserted the spiritual equality of all 
priests. 

Wiclif s greatest breach with popular rehgious 
conceptions was occasioned by his denial, in the 
spring of 1381, of the doctrine of transubstantiation. 
It aroused antagonism as almost nothing else could 
have done. No belief was more widespread at the 
period, and none seemed more sacred to multitudes 
than the faith that when the priest pronounces the 
words of consecration the elements are transformed 
in their substance into the very body and blood of 
Christ.^ Roman CathoHc devotion still cKngs with 
peculiar affection to this doctrine which seems to 
bring Christ into vital contact with present life. To 
Wiclif, however, it appeared unscriptural and ir- 
rational. His own view was essentially that of a 
spiritual presence of Christ in the sacrament which 
Augustine had taught. But something more than its 
supposed unscripturalness or irrationality may have 
led Wiclif to the dangerous task of attacking transub- 
stantiation. He was at war with what he deemed 
an un-Christlike body of clergy who were unjustly 
lording over God's heritage. Their highest power, 
the power no layman was believed to possess, was 

^ See ante, p. 190. 



JOHN WICLIF 207 

that on their consecrating act, the miracle of transub- 
stantiation is wrought. Deny that miracle, and the 
chief distinction between clergy and laity, the main 
spiritual buttress of clerical claims, is swept away.' 

This attack by Wiclif cost him many friends. 
The University of Oxford condemned his opinions, 
though, such was the esteem in which he was there 
held, without mentioning his name. Even untheo- 
logical John of Gaunt urged him to silence. Within 
a few weeks, however, a great disaster overtook the 
WicHfian cause — a disaster for which Vv^iclif was only 
in remote degree responsible. The years-long discon- 
tent of the lower classes has already been mentioned.^ 
In June, 138 1, it flared up in a terrible insurrection 
directed against what the peasants deemed the forces 
of oppression. Deeds and mortgages were burned, 
lawyers killed, the inns of court at the Temple in 
London and John of Gaunt' s palace were destroyed, 
the Archbishop of Canterbury and some of the king's 
leading agents in the collection of taxes were mur- 
dered. King Richard II, himself, was in great peril. 
Fierce as it was, the storm soon passed; but the 
nobles were ruthless in their acts of repression and the 
feehng was widespread that Wiclif s attacks on the 
clergy, and especially the preaching of his "poor 
priests," were responsible for the disorder. Some 

« The suggestion is that of R. L. Poole, Wycliffe and Move- 
ments for Reform, p. 104. 
» Ante, p. 303. 



2o8 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

influence may have come from Wiclif's preachers, 
though he himself had no direct share in the revolt ; 
but the movement as a whole was due to the working 
of long-standing economic grievances. 

The discredit into which the peasant revolt 
brought Wiclif's cause for the time being embold- 
ened his enemies, and in May, 1382, his doctrines 
were condemned by a synod held in London. His 
popularity remained too great, however, for success- 
ful personal attack. He wrote much in vigorous 
English tracts and in Latin. He pushed forward the 
cause he had at heart to his utmost. It was while in 
his own church at Lutterworth on December 28, 
1384, that he suffered the paralytic stroke from 
which he died three days later. 

WicHf's chief characteristic was moral earnest- 
ness. He was a patriot anxious to save England 
from foreign tyranny ; but even more he was a Chris- 
tian intent on advancing the Kingdom of God. He 
broke with the current rehgious system on many 
points. He rejected the papacy, at least of such 
popes as were then in power, denounced the wealth 
of the clergy, criticized the monks, rejected transub- 
stantiation, urged preaching, proclaimed the unique 
authority of the Scriptures, gave England the Bible 
in its own tongue. He evidently regarded vital re- 
ligion as an inward and personal experience. His 
view of it was far deeper than that of most men of 
his age. These are great services; but they hardly 



JOHN WICLIF 209 

entitle him to be called, as he has often been styled, 
"the morning-star of the Reformation." His con- 
ceptions of rehgion, however profound, were the 
famiHar mediaeval Roman Catholic thoughts of 
ascetic "apostolic poverty," and of the gospel as a 
"new law." He had no new theory of the way of 
salvation, or of Christ's relations to men, to offer. 
Hence he was no Luther. Rather he was one of the 
most radical and deserving of the mediaeval reform- 
ers — a man who belonged to the Middle Ages, not to 
the new day. 

This failure to give to his age that which was 
vitally new probably accounts for the surprising 
fruitlessness of his movement in England. At his 
death he had a large following, and on the whole 
royal tolerance made easy the path of his party till 
the downfall of Richard II in 1399. No church was 
founded, however. On the accession of John of 
Gaunt's son, Henry IV, first of the House of Lan- 
caster, the royal poHcy was changed to one of perse- 
cution. The political significance of the " Lollards," 
as Wiclif's followers were called, ended with the 
execution of their leader. Sir John Oldcastle, in 141 7, 
and their rehgious importance did not long survive. 
The one lasting influence of the movement in Eng- 
land was the impulse which it undoubtedly gave to 
the reading of the Bible; and the number of manu- 
scripts of Wiclif's translation which have survived, 
in spite of attempts to destroy them, is remarkable. 



2IO GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

In one remote region of Europe, however, Wiclif's 
work was to have a powerful influence. The Bo- 
hemian reformer, John Huss, did little more doc- 
trinally than reproduce Wiclif's opinions, often in 
WicHf's very words. More conservative intellectu- 
ally, Huss did not share Wiclif's rejection of transub- 
stantiation. Unhke WicHf, he urged the right of the 
laity to partake of the wine as well as of the bread in 
communion. In conduct Huss was much more a 
man of action than WicHf. A teacher in the Uni- 
versity of Prague from 1398 onward, he became, in 
1402, the preacher of the Bethlehem church in that 
city. During the reign of Richard II of England, 
whose queen was a Bohemian princess, many Bo- 
hemian students had been attracted to Oxford and 
had returned with WicHf's writings. Of these Huss 
made a thorough study. They appealed to his Bo- 
hemian patriotism by reason of their rejection of 
foreign authority, and soon to his religious spirit by 
their bold criticism of the evils of the age. To him, 
as to WicHf, Christ is the sole head of the church,' 
only the "predestinate" are its members, and all 
ministers are essentially equal in spiritual powers. In 
sermons of great popular influence Huss denounced 
the corruption of the Bohemian clergy, and advo- 
cated Wiclifian positions. The Bohemian element 

I Too much must not be made of this as a "Protestant" 
declaration. Even so good a churchman as Pierre d'Ailli, who 
was a leader in Huss's condemnation at Constance, taught the 
headship of Christ in the most explicit terms. 



JOHN WICLIF 311 

in the University and city of Prague largely sympa- 
thized with him, and through his influence a decree 
was obtained from King Wenzel, by which the Bo- 
hemians, though a decided minority, were given a 
controlHng influence in the University. The result 
was that Huss became the chief power in that seat of 
learning, while the disgruntled Germans and other 
foreigners regarded it as unorthodox and estabHshed, 
in 1409, the University of Leipzig. 

These events led to a breach between Huss and 
his archbishop, and in 14 10 he was excommunicated 
for WicHfianism. The contest was now fully on, 
and Huss enjoyed large popular support as well as 
the somewhat fickle favor of King Wenzel. The 
situation attracted European attention, and the em- 
peror Sigismund now summoned Huss to appear be- 
fore the great general Council of Constance, which 
had been called, primarily, through the work of the 
leading theologians of the University of Paris, to heal 
the schism and effect reforms in the church. Thither 
he went, protected, as he certainly supposed, by a 
safe conduct from the emperor. He was, however, 
promptly imprisoned, and a pitiful contest ensued. 
On May 4, 141 5, the council condemned Wichf's 
views, and ordered his body cast out of consecrated 
ground. It urged Huss to yield his opinions to its 
authority. The leaders of the church sincerely felt 
not only that a council was wiser than any individual 
in the church, but that only by the recognition of the 



212 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

duty of all Christians to submit their private con- 
victions to its authority could they rid the church of 
its rival popes and end the scandal of the schism. 
To allow Huss to assert his judgment against that of 
the council would be to lose all that the council had 
won for church unity. They were perfectly honest 
in this position. But Huss was equally sincere. He 
would play no tricks with his conscience. He would 
not deny what he believed to be the truth even when 
the council declared him in error. It was a contest 
of opposing principles, and the future was with Huss, 
for the principle for which he stood was essentially 
the right of private judgment which Protestantism 
was to assert. Firm in his opinions, he was con- 
demned by the council as a heretic, and on July 6, 
141 5, was burned at Constance, meeting his death 
with heroic firmness and Christian courage. 

In Bohemia Huss was regarded as a national hero. 
A large part of its population openly supported his 
cause, and, in 141 9, the terrible civil wars began. The 
Hussites gradually divided into conservative and 
radical parties, and the latter was nearly extinguished 
in battle, in 1434; but its remnants survived. Out 
of some of them, and of others influenced by Walden- 
sian views, which had long found a following in Bo- 
hemia, the Unitas Fratrum came into being soon after 
the middle of the fifteenth century. This communion 
was much modified by the influence of the Lutheran 
reformation; but it is the spiritual ancestor of the 



JOHN WICLIF 213 

modern Moravians. Thus Wiclifs influence long 
survived, in modified form, in a land which he never 
saw and which was far from that in which he did his 
work. 

QUESTIONS 

1. What influence had the rise of the national spirit on 
the fortunes of the papacy? 

2. How came the papacy to transfer its seat to Avignon 
and how long did it remain there ? 

3. Who were some of the opponents of extreme papal 
claims ? 

4. What evidences of opposition to the papacy are to be 
found in England under Edward III ? 

5. Sketch WicHf's early life. When and how did he come 
to oppose the papacy ? 

6. What was his theory of " lordship " ? When did a 
clergyman forfeit his office ? 

7. Sketch Wiclifs relations to John of Gaunt. Why ? 

8. What condition of the lower orders favored Wiclifs 
work? 

9. Speak of his ''poor priests" and of his translation of the 
Bible. Its importance ? 

10. What effect had the papal schism on Wiclif? To 
what new positions did he advance after 1378? 

11. What were the reasons for Wiclifs rejection of tran- 
substantiation ? What was its effect ? 

12. What consequences for Wiclifs work had the great 
peasant rising of 1381 ? 

13. Wiclifs last days? His character? Was he "the 
morning star of the Reformation"? 

14. Was Wiclifs work permanent in England? Where 
was it fruitful ? 



214 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

15. Outline the career of John Huss. How did he re- 
semble and how did he differ from Wiclif ? 

16. When, how, and for what did Huss die ? The results 
of his work ? 

ADDITIONAL READING 

G. V. Lechler, John Wiclif and His English Precursors (Lon- 
don, 1878, 1881, 1884). 

Johann Loserth, Wiclif and Huss (London, 1885). 

Rudolf Buddensieg, Wiclif, Patriot and Reformer (London, 
1884). 

R. L. Poole, Wycliffe and Movements for Reform (London, 
1889). 

Lewis Sergeant, John Wyclif (New York, 1893). 

J. F. Hurst, History of the Christian Church (Cincinnati, 
1897), II, 12-42. 



MARTIN LUTHER 



XII 
MARTIN LUTHER 

The period from Wiclif to Luther was one of 
great modification of mediaeval conditions of civil 
life and habits of thought. The tendency toward 
national unity, already noted, had increased, and to 
England and France, Spain was now added as the 
most forceful sister in the family of nations. In 
Germany no such unity existed ; but even there strong 
principalities, like Saxony, Hesse, Brandenburg, and 
Bavaria, were building within the Empire. The dis- 
covery of a New World, and of the sea route to India, 
had immensely widened men's geographical knowl- 
edge and spread wide a vague feehng that they stood 
on the threshold of a new age. The revival of learn- 
ing had given to the educated world a new point of 
view, in which interest in the thought of Greece and 
Rome displaced the influence of scholastic theology. 
It was essentially a "return to the sources;" and was 
leading to a re-examination of that which the Middle 
Ages had accepted as authoritative — a re-examina- 
tion that was slowly beginning to be appHed even in 
the realm of rehgious thought. In poHtical admin- 
istration the layman was wresting his old-time pre- 
eminence from the ecclesiastic. A new individualism 
was taking the place of the strong corporate feeling 

ai7 



2i8 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

of the Middle Ages. The world was in ferment to a 
degree that had not before been manifested since the 
downfall of the Roman Empire. 

In the religious realm the situation was at once 
discouraging and hopeful. The institutions of re- 
ligion had become increasingly corrupt and ineffi- 
cient. The slowly growing sense of the need of re- 
form in the administration not merely of the papacy 
but of the church in general had found expression, 
stimulated by the scandal of the papal schism, in the 
great Councils of Pisa (1409) ; of Constance (141 4-1 8), 
when the schism was ended and Huss condemned;^ 
and of Basel (1431-49). These had attempted to 
change the papacy from an absolute to a constitu- 
tional spiritual monarchy, controlled by councils as a 
king is by a parliament. The effort had been an 
ignominious failure. The church could not be re- 
formed without revolution. In the period following 
the collapse of the conciliar movement the popes 
became more and more engrossed in Italian secular 
politics. Their spiritual interests were largely neg- 
lected. But the taxation imposed by the papacy had 
been rising for a century and a half. The introduc- 
tion of new means of money raising had been fre- 
quent, and the exactions of the Roman court, to 
which a revenue flowed far greater than that of any 
contemporary king, were the scandal of Europe. 
Indeed, so notorious were they, and so widely were 

I Ante, pp. 211, 212. 



MARTIN LUTHER 219 

they the object of hatred, that many scholars are 
inclined to see in them the principal root of the Refor- 
mation. This view, however, fails to do justice to 
the rehgious nature of the movement, though it 
accounts for a large part of Luther's early support. 
Corruption at the head led of course to much similar 
inefficiency in the lower officers of the great hierarch- 
ical edifice. 

On the other hand, there were many signs of a 
deepening popular religious life. In Spain, under 
Feidinand, Isabella, and Cardinal Ximenes, a very 
thoroughgoing movement for the improvement of the 
morals and education of the clergy, without any favor 
toward doctrinal changes, however, was in progress 
from 1479 onward. Similar, though less extensive, 
efforts were made a little later in England. In Ger- 
many, the Bible was being widely read by laymen, 
no less than fourteen editions in the language of the 
people being printed between 1466 and 1520, while 
the gospels and epistles in German were issued 
twenty-five times before 15 18. Preaching was being 
encouraged. The religious orders were undergoing 
a reformation, in which none shared more conspicu- 
ously than that of the Augustinians of which Luther 
was to be a member. There is much evidence of the 
existence of a simple, heartfelt rehgious life among the 
people, and several German governments were even 
taking steps to improve the clergy and do away with 
some of the worst abuses. Indeed, the last years of 



220 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

the fifteenth and the opening of the sixteenth cen- 
turies were witnessing what can be called nothing 
less than a revival of religion in Germany. Its 
dominant notes seem to have a sense of sin and fear 
of divine judgment, and it led, as men's tempera- 
ments inchned, to increased devotion to rehcs, pil- 
grimages, and indulgences, which were never more 
popular, or to more heartfelt and inward evidences 
of piety. Luther's work was not an awakening out 
of spiritual deadness. It was made possible by an 
immense antecedent quickening of popular religious 
feehng. To note this is, however, to detract in no 
way from his world-transforming significance. 

Martin Luther was born in Eisleben, in central 
Germany, on November lo, 1483. His parents were 
peasants. His father was a miner. Both were strict, 
hard-working. God-fearing people; and of energy 
and ambition, anxious that their son should have an 
education and be better placed in the world than 
they. In 1497, therefore, the boy was sent to school 
in Magdeburg, and from 1498 to 1501 in Eisenach, 
where he was befriended by Frau Ursula Cotta. In 
the year last mentioned he entered the University of 
Erfurt, from which he graduated as "Master of 
Arts" in 1505, after a student career of high credit 
from the standpoints of sociability, scholarship, and 
character. His father intended him for a lawyer. 
In spite of his cheerful companionableness, however, 
the sense of his personal unworthiness in the sight of 



MARTIN LUTHER 221 

God weighed heavily upon him. The question, 
"How may I gain a gracious God ?" which may be 
called the ground note of the contemporary German 
religious revival, burdened him. In spite of his fath- 
er's opposition, he determined to seek spiritual peace 
in the monastic Hfe, and on July 17, 1505, entered the 
Augustinian monastery in Erfurt. 

Yet the wished-for rest of soul did not come. He 
studied, he prayed, he practiced monastic austeri- 
ties, he was looked upon by his associates as a 
pattern of monastic piety, but he felt that he was 
wrong in the sight of God. He viewed Christ as a 
stern judge. But gradually his conversation with 
some of the earnest men of the order, notably Johann 
von Staupitz, and his reading of Bernhard, Augus- 
tine, and especially of the PauHne epistles, brought 
him to a new point of view. By 1 507 or 1508, he had 
come to feel that these external efforts after righteous- 
ness in the sight of God were valueless; and that 
justification is a divine gift received through "faith" 
alone. The soul throws itself in trustful confidence 
on God's promises, and enters thereby into a new 
relationship through Christ — a relationship imme- 
diate, personal, and full of good-will on God's part. 
Rehgion, in his new-found experience, was not an 
obedient conformity to a great corporate system of 
life and worship, but a new and personal relation 
to God, which took as one's own all that Christ 
offered, and from which the Christian virtues should 



222 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

naturally flow. God gives everything. Man trust- 
fully receives. This conception was not absolutely 
new. It had been apprehended, none too clearly to 
be sure, by many of the most spiritual-minded men 
of the Middle Ages. But they had not drawn its full 
consequences. They had combined it, as Augustine 
did, with inconsistent ecclesiastical theories. As 
Luther now apprehended it, it was a complete breach 
with current ofiicial interpretations of the gospel. 
It was essentially a revival of the largely forgotten 
PauHne conception of the way of salvation. It was 
to be the mainspring of all Luther's later v/ork. 
Salvation was to him henceforth not something pain- 
fully to be won ; it was a present, certain experience, 
based on an undoubting acceptance of the promises 
of the gospel. In a word, it was a new life of union 
with God through Christ. He who has this new Hfe 
must be "saved."* 

This fresh, Pauline, religious conception of the 
way of salvation placed Luther far in advance, not 
merely of mediaeval reformers like WicHf and Huss, 
but of the great men of the ancient church. But 
Luther was naturally a conservative, and it was long 
after his apprehension of justification by faith alone 
before he realized its full consequences or broke with 
the mediaeval hierarchical system. In 1507 he was 
made a priest; 1508 saw his transfer to Wittenberg, 

I In this and other paragraphs of this sketch I have taken 
some sentences from my The Reformation. 



MARTIN LUTHER 223 

thenceforth to be his home, and the beginning of an 
influential professorship in the Httle, recently founded 
and weak university there situated. He rose to 
prominence in the Augustinian order, was sent to 
Rome on its business in 151 1, and became superin- 
tendent of a group of its monasteries in 1 5 1 5 . Mean- 
while, he attained the degree of Doctor of Theology 
in 15 12, his expositions of the Bible in the classroom 
soon began to attract attention, and his own thinking, 
under the influence of Augustine and of the German 
mystics, by 15 16 had broken with the Aristotelian 
explanations of theology which had been character- 
istic of scholasticism. He was winning great popular 
approval as a preacher. 

Convinced as he was that salvation is based on 
a new personal relation with God, Luther could not 
but view with disapproval the coming of Johann 
Tetzel, in 15 17, as a seller of papal indulgences, the 
proceeds of which were to rebuild St. Peter's in Rome. 
It was the offer of a stone to those who needed bread. 
Accordingly, in strict academic custom, he posted on 
the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, which 
served the university as a bulletin board, ninety-five 
"Theses" proposing a discussion of the value of 
indulgences. The event occurred on October 31, 
1517, the eve of ''All Saints," when the church was 
to be crowded with pilgrims. In themselves, the 
theses were very moderate; but they held that peni- 
tence is not an act done once for all, but a Hfelong 



224 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

state of the soul; that the real treasury of the church 
is not one of good works, but the gospel of God's 
grace ; and that every Christian who feels true com- 
punction for his sins has full remission of punishment 
and guilt. In the existing state of heated opposition 
to the financial exactions of the Roman court the 
theses attracted immediate attention throughout Ger- 
many. Their effect was far greater than Luther 
could have anticipated. He had spoken in opposition 
to the system, and was at once a marked man. Its 
effect on the sale of indulgences was immediate. Of 
course Tetzel repHed at once, but more powerful 
defenders of indulgences appeared, chief of whom 
was the brilliant Johann Maier of Eck, and a Roman 
Dominican, "Master of the Sacred Palace," Prierias, 
who affirmed the infalHbiHty of the pope, in whom 
he declared the church to be virtually embodied, and 
declared that whatever the Roman church does is 
right. Luther had wished no quarrel with the 
papacy; but he now, in 1 518, took up the battle with 
Prierias, asserting the infallibility of the Word of 
God, and denying that the pope is virtually the 
church. The struggle was assuming vastly larger 
dimensions. It was changing from a question of the 
misuse of indulgences to that of the power of the 
papacy, and of the hierarchical system of which the 
papacy was the crown. 

A summons to Rome for trial reached Luther in 
August, 1 5 18, and he would undoubtedly have had to 



MARTINXUTHER 225 

go to his death, had he not been protected by the 
favor of Elector Friedrich of Saxony, his sovereign, 
who, though in sHght sympathy with Luther's re- 
ligious position, was proud of his reputation and work 
in the University of Wittenberg. Friedrich was of 
poHtical importance for Pope Leo X. The matter 
was compromised. Luther appeared before the 
pope's representative. Cardinal Cajetan, at Augsburg 
in October, 15 18; but was ordered to submit. In- 
stead, he issued an appeal to a general council, 
though without real hope that the appeal would be 
heard, and in expectation of speedy death. His 
courage never shone out more conspicuously. But 
poHtics still counseled the pope to compromise, and 
Luther finally agreed, in January, 15 19, to submit 
the questions to a German bishop, and pending the 
decision to remain silent, provided his opponents 
would refrain from controversy. This was impos- 
sible, and on July 4, 15 19, Luther found himself face 
to face with Eck in a momentous discussion at 
Leipzig. In his studies preparatory to this debate 
Luther had made a great advance in the clear appre- 
hension of the consequences of his earlier positions. 
He had come to the conclusion that the supremacy 
of the papacy was not merely unnecessary, but was 
based on many false pretenses and of comparatively 
recent origin. He had also made up his mind that 
the seat of ecclesiastical power is the church, not its 
officers, and that the church is the whole number of 



226 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

Christian believers, not the hierarchy. With these 
convictions Luther entered the discussion. Eck 
was a most skilful debater, and soon showed that 
many of Luther's positions were those of Huss, who 
had been condemned by the Council of Constance. 
It was a moment of decision for Luther. He had 
doubted the authority of the papacy, but to deny the 
infaUibihty of a general council was to break with all 
mediaeval orthodoxy. It was to break with the 
whole hierarchical system. It left the sole ultimate 
authority the Scriptures; and that the Scriptures 
interpreted by private judgment, since it was in 
reliance on his own judgment that Luther decided 
that a general council had erred. Yet he did not 
shrink from the step. His breach with the mediaeval 
system was now complete. 

Luther's bold stand won him the hearty support 
of all in Germany who looked in any way with dis- 
favor on the papacy. By many he was regarded as 
a national hero ; and he now began to look upon his 
own work as a national struggle for freedom from the 
papacy and all that the papal system represented. 
Eck hastened to Rome to secure Luther's condemna- 
tion as a heretic. In anticipation of its coming and 
effect Luther now issued two powerful revolutionary 
treatises of the highest importance. In August, 1 5 20, 
he put forth in German his appeal To the Christian 
Nobles of the German Nation. He called upon the 
rulers to redress the grievances from which Germany 



MARTIN LUTHER 227 

had long suffered and to take the renovation of the 
church into their own hands. The spiritual claims 
of a special priesthood to stand between the layman 
and God are worthless. God is approachable by 
all without priestly intervention — a doctrine which 
swept away the superstitious fear of priestly power 
which gave its chief strength to the hierarchy of the 
Middle Ages. "All Christians are truly of the spir- 
itual estate, and there is no difference among them 
save of office alone." The pope has no monopoly in 
the interpretation of Scripture or of the summoning 
of general councils. All honest occupations have on 
them the divine blessing, and the religious life may be 
lived in them as truly as in monasticism. A German 
national church should be guided by a primate of 
Germany; ministers should be chosen by the com- 
munities they serve; priestly celibacy should no 
longer be required; monasticism should be restricted, 
and the proper care of the poor be secured. 

Two months later, Luther issued an appeal to the 
learned in Latin^ — his Babylonish Captivity. That 
bondage he finds in the mediaeval conception of the 
sacraments. Their number has been exaggerated, 
their efficacy made magical. Baptism and the Sup- 
per — ^which is no sacrifice offered by the priest to 
God — are witnesses to and attestations of the divine 
promise of forgiveness. Hence their value is re- 
ceived by faith only. They evidence to us the truth 
of God's promises. 



228 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

Yet such was Luther's inward calmness of spirit, 
that even in these stormy weeks he could write a 
third great tract, pubhshed in November, 1520 — 
his Christian Liberty. It is an untroubled exposi- 
tion of his faith, as illustrated in the great paradox 
of Christian experience: "A Christian man is the 
most free lord of all and subject to none; a Christian 
man is the most dutiful servant of all and subject to 
everyone." He is free because justified by faith and 
united with Christ; he is a servant through love, 
because he must bring his body into subjection to 
his regenerated spirit and aid his fellow-men. "A 
Christian man does not live in himself, but in Christ 
and in his neighbor, or else is no Christian; in 
Christ by faith, in his neighbor by love." 

The papal bull ordering Luther to make his peace 
within sixty days or suffer the penalties of a heretic 
was now in Germany, and Luther answered it 
by a dramatic act. On December 10, at Witten- 
berg, with the consenting presence of his colleagues, 
fellow-townsmen, and students, he burned it, with 
copies of the papal decretals and canon law. Such 
an act evidently put a section of Saxony into rebellion 
against the existing ecclesiastical constitution of Ger- 
many, and could not fail to come to the cognizance 
of the Reichstag. Accordingly, after long discussion, 
a command and safe-conduct from the Emperor, 
Charles V, ordered him to appear before it in Worms 
to declare in what measure he still maintained the 



MARTIN LUTHER 229 

positions advanced in his books. On April 17 and 
18, 152 1, he appeared before that august parHament. 
It is well-nigh impossible for one of this age to con- 
ceive the courage v^hich such a task demanded. 
Could he, a peasant's son, maintain his independence 
in the face of the spiritual and temporal rulers of 
his nation ? Was he sure enough of himself to 
affirm that his own conscientious conviction of the 
truth of God was more to be rehed on than the 
declarations of the great representative gatherings of 
Christendom which men generally beheved to have 
been spoken by the power of the Holy Ghost ? He 
was unshaken in his cause. Before the assembly he 
refused to recant, and declared that he could not do 
so unless refuted by scriptural testimonies or clear 
arguments. It was the most heroic moment of his 
courageous Kfe. 

On May 26 Charles V signed the Edict of Worms 
declaring Luther an outlaw to be seized for punish- 
ment; but fortunately, Friedrich still favored him, 
and for his protection had Luther seized as he 
journeyed homeward and hidden in the castle 
known as the Wartburg, near Eisenach. In this 
safe retreat he Hved for eleven months, a period 
distinguished for his translations of the New Testa- 
ment into German. As has already been pointed 
out^ this was far from the first German transla- 
tion; but it was fresh, idiomatic, and readable. Its 

I Ante, p. 219. 



230 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

effect on the popular religious life was almost im- 
measurable. 

Thus far Luther had been steadily growing as a 
national leader supported by most various classes 
of Germany. To these years belong his best work, 
his new, deeply rehgious appreciation of the way of 
salvation; his free trust in the universal priesthood 
of behevers, his fresh and suggestive examination and 
valuation of Scripture in proportion as it taught 
clearly or imperfectly the doctrine of justification by 
faith. But from his return from the Wartburg to 
Wittenberg, in March, 1522, without any alteration 
in his doctrine of salvation, his position changed grad- 
ually, by force of circumstances, to that of a party 
leader. The vision of a universally purified church, 
or even of a united Germany, slowly faded, because 
it proved impossible of realization, and to some 
extent because of his own conservative fears. That 
return was compelled by disorders in Wittenberg, 
which he mastered, but which led to the separation of 
his more radical followers. Worse by far was the 
divisive effect of the great peasant revolt of 1524 
and 1525. In it he took the side of the nobihty who 
crushed it in blood. Probably in no other way 
could he have kept their important favor for his 
cause, and he was thoroughly honest in his attitude. 
But the results were most unfortunate. Much of 
Germany charged the revolt to his teaching, and 
swung back toward the older church; and he him- 



MARTIN LUTHER 231 

self came to distrust the common man and to feel 
that all effective reform must be the work of the 
princes. The same years also witnessed his dispute 
with Erasmus, and the separation of many of the 
scholars from his movement. In 1529 came his 
doctrinal rupture with ZwingH and the leaders of the 
Swiss reformation at the Marburg Colloquy. 

Of the steps by which the Lutheran movement 
became the Lutheran churches our space will not 
allow us to speak at length. The year 1526 saw the 
beginnings of the organization of territorial churches 
by the rulers of evangehcal sympathies. Three 
years later the protest of these leaders against reac- 
tionary Roman CathoHc poHcies in the Reichstag of 
Speyer fixed the name "Protestant" permanently on 
the party. In 1530, they presented their creed to the 
Emperor and Reichstag at Augsburg — the Augsburg 
Confession. Then followed a quarter of a century 
of poHtical, and at times mihtary, contest, a period 
marked by the rapid territorial expansion of the 
Protestant movement, till by the Peace of Augsburg, 
in 1555, the Lutherans were recognized as rehgious 
bodies having equal rights with the Roman Catholics 
of the Empire. 

In the spiritual battles of this contest Luther bore 
his full part, assisted by his friend the noble-minded 
PhiHp Melanchthon, till his death at Eisleben, the 
place of his birth, on February 18, 1546. The work 
far outgrew the power of any one man to direct it; 



232 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

but as long as he lived he was the foremost figure in 
his native land, and no son of Germany has been so 
honored in memory as he. 

Luther's work brought Protestantism into being. 
It had many aspects; but a few of its more signifi- 
cant rehgious results may be enumerated. Fore- 
most of all it placed in men's minds the conception 
of the Christian life as a new personal relationship 
between the soul and God through Christ. Not 
membership in a great corporation and obedience to 
its laws, not even nourishment by its sacraments — 
though Luther greatly valued the sacraments as 
witnesses to God's promises — are the important 
things. The one essential is a new and vital rela- 
tionship to God. Hence saintly intercession or 
priestly intermediaries are all needless. God gives 
his gifts and himself directly to the willing soul. A 
second great result was the fruit of the principles 
just described. Luther taught the universal priest- 
hood of Christians. The clergy are a ministry who 
serve by preaching, by guidance, by leadership in the 
sacraments; they are not a priesthood divinely em- 
powered with authority no layman possesses. In 
case of need any Christian can be chosen by his 
fellows their minister. This view swept away the 
claims of the whole mediaeval hierarchy, either as 
dispensers of divine grace or as exclusive interpreters 
of the Word of God. A third feature of his work, of 
equal significance, was Luther's insistence that the 
ordinary natural relations of family and society afford 



MARTIN LUTHER 233 

the highest opportunities for Christian Hving. Not 
in celibacy, or monastic separation from the world, 
but in its duties and normal relations, is Christian 
service to be sought. To this vastly important doc- 
trine Luther gave the sanction of his own example 
by his marriage, on June 13, 1525, to an ex-nun, 
Catherine von Bora; and in his family Hfe some of 
the most attractive traits of his character appeared. 
Less important, probably, but of much significance, 
were Luther's insistence that worship should be in 
language understood by the people, his exaltation 
of the exposition of the Word of God as its central 
feature, and his vindication for laymen of a share in 
the government of the church. When every allow- 
ance possible has been made for the tendencies of the 
age which he embodied, and which might conceiva- 
bly have found other leaders, he still remains one of 
the few men of whom it may be said that the history 
of the church has been profoundly modified for all 
subsequent time to the present by his hfe and work. 
Protestantism is his monument and his permanent 
debtor. 

QUESTIONS 

1. What tendencies were at work in popular thought on 
the eve of the Reformation ? 

2. What criticisms of papal abuses were rife ? 

3. Were there evidences of reformatory zeal and deepen- 
ing religious feeling ? 

4. Speak of Luther's parentage, birth, and rank in life. 
What were the circumstances of his education ? Why did he 
enter a monastery ? 



234 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

5. How did Luther seek spiritual peace? What did he 
mean by "justification by faith alone"? Value to him of 
this experience ? 

6. Did Luther immediately become a reformer ? What was 
his history from 1507 to 1517 ? Where was he a professor? 

7. How and why did he protest against the abuse of indul- 
gences? The effect of this protest? How did the scope 
of the controversy enlarge through Prierias' attack? 

8. What was the importance for Luther's development of 
his discussion with Eck at Leipzig ? To what clearer views 
did it bring him ? 

9. What were his great controversial tracts of 1520? 
What was their argument ? 

10. What was his tract on Christian Liberty ? 

11. How did Luther treat the pope's bull of condemnation ? 
Consequences of the action? His appearance before the 
Reichstag of Worms ? Its significance ? 

12. What action was taken by the emperor against Luther ? 
How did he escape its consequences? How did he employ 
his sojourn in the Wartburg ? 

13. What change of position was forced on Luther by the 
development of the Reformation after his return from the 
Wartburg ? His death ? 

14. What were the main results of Luther's work? His 
significance in Christian history ? 

ADDITIONAL READING 
Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (New York, 

1888), VI, 94-744- 
Henry E. Jacobs, Martin Luther (New York, 1898). 
Williston Walker, The Reformation (New York, 1900), pp. 

71-146, 181-224. 
Thomas M. Lindsay, A History of the Reformation (New York, 

1906), Vol. I. 



JOHN CALVIN 



XIII 
JOHN CALVIN 

Contemporary with much of Luther's work, 
though later in its initiation, an independent and 
more radical reformatory movement ran its course 
in Switzerland. Its leader was Ulrich Zwingh. Born 
in Wildhaus, on January i, 1484, a few weeks later 
than Luther, Zwingh obtained an excellent educa- 
tion in the "new learning," and was in hearty sym- 
pathy with the humanistic feehng that men should 
go back of the interpretations of the Middle Ages to 
the grand sources of Christian truth, the Scriptures. 
It was this impulse, rather than a profound religious 
experience such as Luther enjoyed, that made him a 
reformer. His first pastorate in Glarus, from 1506 
to 1 5 16, was followed by more than two years in 
Einsiedeln. In December, 15 18, he was called to 
Zurich, and there his real reformatory work began. 
By 1522 he had rejected the Lenten fast as without 
scriptural support. The same year he married. In 
1523 he defended in public debate the sole authority 
of Scripture, and the immediate headship of Christ 
over the church. With the support of the Zurich 
magistrates the pictures, crucifixes, and images were 
removed from the churches in 1524, and in 1525 
the communion was substituted for the mass. 
237 



238 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

Church services were reduced to a Puritan simplicity. 
Luther, conservative by nature, held that all was 
allowable in worship which the Word of God did not 
expressly condemn, thus retaining many of the older 
usages and adornments. The radical Zwingli felt 
that nothing should be retained for which express 
warrant could not be found in the Bible. Hence 
Swiss worship was from the first of an unadorned 
and severely intellectual character. This heritage 
was to pass to the reformed churches of France, 
Holland, and Scotland, and to the Puritans of Eng- 
land and America. 

ZwingH's comparative radicaHsm appeared also in 
his doctrine of the Lord's Supper. His rejection of 
any form of the physical presence of Christ led to a 
bitter controversy with Luther, and the permanent 
separation of the Swiss and German reform move- 
ments at the Marburg Colloquy in October, 1529. 

The reform movement spread rapidly in German- 
speaking Switzerland. The great canton of Bern 
was won for it in 1528, and that of Basel in 1529. 
Appenzell, St. Gall, and Schaffhausen joined the 
movement. The Zwinglian type of reformation 
found support also outside of Switzerland in the 
important German city of Strassburg, where Martin 
Bucer (1491-1551), surpassed in influence throughout 
Germany only by Luther and Melanchthon, was 
disposed to sympathize with ZwingH rather than with 
Luther. Controversy between the Protestant and 



JOHN CALVIN 239 

Catholic cantons in Switzerland led, however, on 
October 11, 1531, to a battle at Cappel between 
Zurich and its Roman neighbors in which Zwingli 
lost his life. His work was not lost, for it came 
under the wise and patient leadership at Zurich of 
Heinrich BulHnger (1504-75); and the Swiss move- 
ment as a whole was soon to be remodeled and given 
a world-wide significance by the reformer of French 
Switzerland, John Calvin. 

The beginnings of the reform movement in France, 
from which land Calvin was to come, were, like those 
of Switzerland, closely connected with the revival 
of learning. A group of scholars, of whom Jacques 
Le F^vre (?-i536) was the leader in Paris and its 
vicinity, were actively following the humanistic path 
of study of the Scriptures and of opposition to super- 
stitions and abuses. These men were seeking a 
warmer rehgious Kfe, without thought of breaking 
with the Roman church, before the fame of Luther's 
struggle had spread abroad. Their work affected 
many in high position, though it seems not to have 
touched the common people, and, indeed, the popu- 
lation of France as a whole had little of that hostihty 
toward the papacy, that was widespread among the 
masses in Germany. It was in this humanistic, semi- 
reformatory atmosphere that Calvin's rehgious life 
was to have its first awakening. 

John Calvin was born in Noyon, a Httle city about 
fifty-eight miles north of Paris, on July 10, 1509. 



240 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

He therefore belonged to the second generation of 
the Reformers. His father was a self-made man, 
who had risen to influence in the legal and admin- 
istrative service of the bishop and chapter of Noyon, 
a man eagerly ambitious for his sons and anxious to 
give them all the advantages in his power. Among 
the boy's friends were the sons of the noble family 
of Hangest, and this acquaintance doubtless gave 
to him a famiHarity with the ways of polite society 
such as few of the Reformers enjoyed. After re- 
ceiving such education as Noyon permitted, Calvin 
was sent, in 1523, when fourteen, to the University 
of Paris, where he pursued the undergraduate course 
till its completion, probably in 1528, and not merely 
became master of a brilliant Latin style, but gained 
much skill in logical argument. The expenses of 
these student days were paid by ecclesiastical ap- 
pointments in and near Noyon, though Calvin never 
received ordination either as a Cathohc or a Protes- 
tant. 

Calvin's father had originally intended him for a 
clerical career, but had now quarreled over business 
matters with the chapter of the Noyon Cathedral 
whose agent he was. At his father's insistence he 
now turned to the study of law, in the universities of 
Orleans and Bourges. Here he also engaged in the 
pursuit of the Latin classics and began his acquaint- 
ance with Greek. The long hours of labor to which 
he forced himself gave him a brilliant reputation as a 



JOHN CALVIN 241 

student, but permanently undermined his health, 
leaving him subject thenceforth to severe attacks of 
nervous dyspepsia. Throughout his student days, 
however, he made many warm friendships and was 
evidently much beloved by such of his companions 
as shared his intimacy. 

The death of his father in 1531, when his course 
as a lawyer was practically completed, left Calvin 
free to carry out his own wishes. He therefore took 
up residence once more in Paris as a student of the 
classics, with the purpose of pursuing the scholar's 
career. The fruit of these studies was his first book, 
his Commentary on Seneca's Treatise on Clemency, 
published in 1532. It is a marvel of classical learn- 
ing, the more remarkable that its author was not 
yet twenty-three. It reveals a high sense of moral 
values, but it shows, equally, that religious consider- 
ations had not yet the first place in his regard. He 
was still primarily interested in questions of scholar- 
sliip. The year following the printing of this book 
was spent by Calvin in further study of law in Or- 
leans, but in the autumn of 1533 he was once more 
in Paris, and in hearty sympathy with his friend 
Nicolas Cop, whose strongly Protestant address, 
dehvered as rector of the university on November i, 
put that institution in turmoil. It has been alleged 
that Calvin wrote the address. Of this there is no 
sufficient proof; but that it voiced sentiments with 
which he was in essential agreement there can be no 



242 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

doubt, and contemporary letters show that religion 
was now uppermost in his thoughts. A great change 
had come to him since he wrote his Seneca — a change 
which he himself called his "conversion." Unfortu- 
nately the circumstances and the date of this spiritual 
transformation are exceedingly obscure. It probably 
took place late in 1532 or early in 1533; and it is 
evident that it involved not merely spiritual enhght- 
enment, and a recognition of the supreme authority 
of the Scriptures, but a conscious submission of 
his will to that of God. In obedience to God's 
will he must give up the career of scholarly quiet 
that was opening so briUiantly, and court poverty 
and danger. This central experience made the di- 
vine sovereignty always prominent in Calvin's re- 
ligious thought. As Luther's consciousness of reUef 
from the sense of guilt placed justification by faith 
alone in the forefront of his convictions, so Calvin's 
obedience to God's guidance, as he conceived it, 
made the divine rulership a cornerstone of his later 
theology. 

The commotion caused by Cop's address com- 
pelled Calvin to fly from Paris, and he now spent 
some months in wandering and concealment. In 
May, 1534, he was in Noyon, where he resigned his 
ecclesiastical benefices from which he had thus far 
drawn revenue, and was briefly imprisoned in con- 
nection with a tumult in one of the churches. Part 
of this time of retirement was spent at Angouleme 



JOHN CALVIN 243 

as the guest of his friend, Louis du Tillet; and in 
his hospitable home Calvin seems to have carried on 
the studies which were, a Httle later, to result in the 
Institutes. The outbreak of severe persecution in 
the autumn of 1534, however, compelled Calvin and 
du Tillet to seek refuge in the Protestant city of Basel 
in northern Switzerland. 

The most significant incident of Calvin's residence 
in Basel was the pubhcation, in March, 1536, of the 
first edition of his Institutes — a work which he had 
substantially completed in the preceding August, 
when he was little more than twenty-six years of age. 
It is the clearest, most logical, and most readable 
exposition of Protestant doctrine that the Reforma- 
tion age produced, and it gave its youthful author 
at once a European fame. Calvin labored on its 
elaboration nearly all his active life. It may be 
said to have attained doctrinal completeness in the 
second edition (1539), and perfection of presentation 
in its final and much enlarged form issued twenty 
years later; but its interpretation of Christian truth 
was always essentially the same. To this masterful 
treatise Calvin prefaced a remarkable letter to Fran- 
cis I of France, defending the Protestants of that 
land from the criticisms of their enemies, and vindi- 
cating their rights to a respectful hearing. No man 
had yet spoken so effectively in their behalf, and with 
this letter Calvin took a position of assured leader- 
ship in the party whose cause he pleaded. 



244 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

A brief visit to Ferrara in Italy followed the pub- 
lication of the Institutes. Calvin then returned to 
Paris to secure his brother and sister and settle his 
business affairs, preHminary to intended removal to 
Protestant Strassburg. War compelled a detour by 
Geneva. He reached there late in July, 1536, in- 
tending to spend a single night; but was met by 
the entreaties and admonitions of his friend, Guil- 
laume Farel, to remain and engage with him in the 
estabhshment of the Reformation in the city. To 
Calvin it seemed a call of God, and he now began 
his Genevan work. 

No city could have seemed less promising than 
Geneva to one who, like Calvin, beheved that the 
prime duty of minister and magistrate alike was the 
cultivation of strict, conscientious. Christian charac- 
ter. Pressed upon by the Duke of Savoy, with 
whom its bishop was in sympathy, its liberty-loving 
citizens had rejected Savoyard influence and driven 
out the bishop. Farel had labored there since 1532. 
The mass had been suspended in 1535, and in May, 
1536, two months before Calvin's coming, the citi- 
zens by formal vote had placed themselves on the 
Protestant side. Yet their Protestantism was chiefly 
political hostihty to the bishop, not doctrinal con- 
viction. The town was notoriously pleasure-loving, 
and its religious institutions were all in confusion. 
It was a most difficult task to which Calvin was thus 
suddenly invited by Farel. 



JOHN CALVIN 245 

Calvin began his work with vigor. He would 
have each inhabitant assent to a Protestant creed, 
the young instructed in a catechism, all watched 
over as to moral conduct, the church free to act to 
the point of excommunication, and the government 
then to deal with incorrigible offenders. It was the 
most strenuous programme of moral discipline that 
Protestantism had yet presented, and it, of course, 
aroused opposition. The point of attack was the 
partial freedom from governmental control which 
Calvin, unlike the German and Swiss reformers be- 
fore him, demanded for the church. On this issue 
Calvin and Farel were defeated, and were banished 
from the city in April, 1538. His work seemed a 
failure. 

The next three years were spent by Calvin in 
Strassburg and were in many ways the happiest of his 
life. He was pastor of the church of French refugees 
and was free to carry out his disciplinary measures; 
he was a successful teacher of theology; he was 
honored by the city, and was made its representative 
in important religious conferences in Germany. Here 
he married, in August, 1540, the wife who was to be 
his helpful companion till her death in March, 1549. 
His Strassburg career did much for him. It enlarged 
his experience and ripened his thought in every way. 

Meanwhile a revolution had occurred in Geneva, 
his friends were once more in power, and his return 
was eagerly sought. In September, 1541, with great 



246 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

reluctance, he once more took up the Geneva bur- 
den, practically on his own terms. The ecclesiasti- 
cal constitution of the city now established was not 
indeed quite what he desired, but it put into effective 
operation his leading ideas. Its most important 
feature was the Consistory, made up of the ministers 
of the city and of twelve laymen, to whom the moral 
oversight of Geneva was referred. It could proceed 
in discipHne as far as excommunication. If that 
failed to effect amendment, the power of the civil 
government was called in. Naturally, in practice, 
this ecclesiastical supervision aroused great opposi- 
tion, not only from those to whom any discipline was 
irksome, but from more worthy representatives of 
old Genevan families to whom Calvin and his asso- 
ciates seemed foreign intruders who had imposed 
their yoke on the city. His stay was a constant 
contest, and Calvin was many times on the brink of 
banishment. But he fought his way courageously, 
and the influx of exiles for their faith, chiefly from 
France, whom Calvin attracted to Geneva, con- 
stantly increased his following. At the very crisis 
of the struggle, in 1553, the brilliant but erratic 
Michel Servetus, the critic of the doctrine of the 
Trinity, came to the city, and his condemnation 
became a trial of strength between Calvin and his 
enemies. Though Calvin wished for Servetus an 
easier death than that at the stake, which was in- 
flicted on October 27, 1553, he had long determined 



JOHN CALVIN 247 

to crush that ill-balanced thinker; and the incident is 
one which shows Calvin in his least attractive light. 
A riot in 1555, however, gave Calvin's friends in 
Geneva the upper hand; and his position was made 
permanently secure by the admission of a large num- 
ber of the refugees to citizenship. Thenceforward, 
to his death, he had no serious opposition in Geneva. 
Calvin now crowned his Genevan edifice by the 
" Academy" in 1559. This famous school, which was 
for a century the most distinguished seat of educa- 
tion under the control of the Reformed churches, 
became at once a training institution for the Protes- 
tant ministry of France, and its influence was pro- 
foundly felt in the Netherlands, England, Scotland, 
and Germany. For Calvin, Geneva was never an 
end in itself. He would make it a city of refuge for 
persecuted Protestants, an example of a strictly dis- 
ciplined Christian community, and a center for min- 
isterial training whence men should go forth to 
advance the Reformation cause. In all this he suc- 
ceeded. And, besides this constant labor in Geneva, 
Calvin exercised a real, though unofficial, superin- 
tendence over all non- German and non- Anglican 
Protestantism. Before his death, great reform move- 
ments bearing his impress had begun, and in some 
instances had far advanced, in France, the Nether- 
lands, Scotland, Poland, Hungary, and even in the 
Rhine Valley section of Germany. They reproduced 
his theology and his conceptions of the well-disci- 



248 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

plined Christian life. He trained many of their 
leaders, and maintained an enormous and far-reach- 
ing correspondence. To Calvin was due the essen- 
tial spiritual likeness that came to exist among the 
scattered family of non-Lutheran Protestantism; and 
the territorial growth of Calvinism had but begun 
at his death. His system was destined powerfully 
to mold English thought through the Puritans, and 
American religious development through the Pil- 
grim and Puritan, the Scotch-Irish, the Dutch, the 
Huguenot, and the German-Reformed elements in 
our national life. 

With all this multiplicity of tasks Calvin's pen was 
always busy. His commentaries, which cover the 
greater part of the Bible, are the best that the Refor- 
mation age produced. His Institutes were constantly 
improved. His minor treatises discussed the most 
important questions of the day. He was unremitting 
in attention to preaching and to theological lectures. 
This activity was the more remarkable because his 
health was always precarious, and in the latter years 
of his life he was constantly an invalid. He died, 
worn out by his burdens and disabilities, when not 
yet fifty-five years of age, in Geneva, on May 27, 
1564. 

Calvin's theology was essentially Augustinian, with- 
out the ecclesiasticism with which the great African 
thinker combined his doctrine of grace. God is all 
powerful in creation and providence. In him is the 



JOHN CALVIN 249 

sole source of all good, wherever manifested. The 
object of all worthy laws, as well as of right indi- 
vidual action, is conformity to the will of God. 
Man's chief duty and enjoyment is to know him 
and what he requires and offers. This knowledge is 
adequately imparted only by the Scriptures, which 
approve themselves as the very Word of God by the 
inward testimony of the Holy Spirit in the heart of 
the beheving reader. No other authority than this 
Word is of value. 

Man was created upright, but by Adam's fall has 
become wholly bad. He is of himself utterly in- 
capable of any good act, and his salvation is totally 
the work of God. Its basis is what Christ has 
wrought for men, but to be available that must 
become man's personal possession. Christ must 
become ours. We must enter into vital union with 
him. This union is conditioned on faith; but this 
faith is itself the gift of God, and comes by "the 
secret efficacy of the Spirit." Grace therefore flows 
not through the sacraments alone, but by the divine 
Spirit who works when and where and how he will. 
As with Luther, the sacraments are seals attesting 
God's promises. 

The consequence of faith is the Christian life. 
To Calvin, far more than to Luther, this life is one 
of strenuous endeavor. Though no longer judged 
by the law of God, the Christian sees in it the pattern 
to which his Hfe should conform. *' We are justified 



250 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

not without, and yet not by works." No man can 
be really a Christian without aspiring to holiness of 
life. This insistence is one of the prime features of 
Calvinism. It made character a main test of all 
true religious life. 

Since all grace is from God, and man deserves 
nothing of himself, the salvation or loss of any indi- 
vidual must depend on the divine purpose. Calvin 
advanced beyond Augustine in holding that no one 
in whom God had really begun a work of grace could 
fail to be saved. From this doctrine of election 
therefore he drew great encouragement. 

In his theory of the church, Calvin held that, in 
the last analysis, it is the invisible company of the 
elect; but as known to us it is the body of those who 
profess the Christian faith. It is properly governed 
only by officers of divine appointment — the pastors, 
teachers, elders, and deacons of the New Testament, 
who are called to their duties inwardly by God, and 
outwardly by the consent of those they serve. Calvin 
thus recognized a true share of the people in the 
choice of their church officers. 

Calvinism has proved of great service to civil 
liberty, rather as a consequence of Calvin's prin- 
ciples than of a deliberate purpose on his part. His 
doctrine that when God's commands are clear no 
contrary human enactment deserves any obedience, 
tended to develop independent judgment as to the 
righteousness of any statute of man's making; while 



JOHN CALVIN 251 

his principle that church officers receive their places 
with the consent of those they serve, led men to re- 
gard them as responsible to their congregations — a 
feeling easily carried to civil governorships and other 
places of political rule. The debt of America to 
his work, rehgiously and politically, is well-nigh im- 
measurable. 

QUESTIONS 

1. Give some account of the life and work of Zwingli. 
How did he resemble and how did he differ from Luther ? 

2. What influences favored the beginning of the reform 
movement in France ? 

3. Describe Calvin's parentage, early life, and education. 

4. In what studies did Calvin gain distinction ? 

5. What was the nature of Calvin's conversion? What 
experience in it affected his theology ? 

6. How did Calvin come to leave France ? 

7. When were the Institutes published, and what was their 
significance ? 

8. What was the condition of Geneva and how came 
Calvin to settle there ? Why was it a hard field ? 

9. What did Calvin attempt in his first stay in Geneva ? 
How did it end ? 

10. What was the value to Calvin of his residence in Strass- 
burg? 

11. How came Calvin to return to Geneva? The Con- 
sistory? The sources of opposition? His success in the 
struggle ? 

12. What did Calvin aim to make of Geneva? How 
far did he succeed ? 

13. What were the results of Calvin's work outside of 
Geneva ? 



252 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

14. Calvin's varied activities ? His death ? 

15. Speak of some features of Calvin's theology. 

16. What was his service to civil liberty? Why? 

ADDITIONAL READING 

Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (New York, 

1892), VII, 1-844. 
John F. Hurst, History of the Christian Church (Cincinnati, 

1897), II, 223-304. 
Williston Walker, John Calvin (New York, 1906). 



JOHN KNOX 



XIV 
JOHN KNOX 

Calvin's most eminent spiritual disciple was un- 
doubtedly John Knox, if the permanency and widely 
extended character of his work are the criteria of 
estimate. He had little of the originality of Luther, 
Zwingh, or Calvin; but though principally indebted 
for his theology and his form of church organization 
* to the Genevan reformer, Knox possessed so impres- ■ 
sive an individuality and such personal force, and 
fought so peculiar and successful a battle, that he 
had high independent significance among the leaders 
of the Reformation age. His is not only the greatest 
figure in Scottish history, but the history of the 
Reformation in Scotland is largely the story of Knox's 
life. 

Scotland before the Reformation was an unde- 
veloped land.' Its business and its culture were 
alike backward, it was torn by internal controversies 
in which the nobles and the great churchmen bore 
full share. Its monarchy was weak. Its church,* 
though wealthy enough to possess half the land of the 
kingdom, was notoriously corrupt. In its political 
relations, Scotland was harassed by well-grounded 
fears of English aggression, which inclined the little 

I In this sketch the writer has made considerable use of what 
he has already said in his volume The Reformation. 



256 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

kingdom toJook for aid to France. The Reforma- 
tion movement was far advanced on the Continent 
before it was felt in Scotland. The first Scottish 
Protestant martyr, Patrick Hamilton, was burned 
under Archbishop James Beaton at St. Andrews in 
1528, and this policy of repression was even more 
severely carried out under James Beaton's nephew 
and successor, Cardinal David Beaton; but Protes- 
tantism grew very slowly till it found a leader in 
Knox. 

John Knox was born probably in the Giffordgate 
district of Haddington, thirteen miles east of Edin- 
burgh, on some unknown day probably of the year 
1513.^ His father, William Knox, was in humble 
circumstances, but the boy had the advantage of a 
good school in Haddington, and entered a univer- 
sity, probably that of St. Andrews, where he came 
under the influence of the leading scholastic theolo- 
gian of Scotland, John Major (1469-1550). While* 
thoroughly Roman in doctrine. Major criticized the 
papal administration, wished to limit the number 
of monks, and held that civil authority is derived, 
from the people, who can depose and even execute 
unjust rulers. In the opinion last described he was 

I The traditional year of Knox's birth is 1505; but the evi- 
dence for 15 13 seems stronger. Besides the claim of Giffordgate 
as the scene of his birth, that event has been assigned to Gifford 
and to Morham, each village about four miles from Haddington. 
The subject is well discussed by Professor Henry Cowan, John 
Knox (New York, 1905), pp. 22-29, 4S~48- 



JOHN KNOX 257 

to have an energetic disciple in Knox. By 154a 
Knox had been ordained to the priesthood. He also 
acted as notary, and served as a tutor, by 1544 hav-^ 
ing under his care several young sons of Lothian 
famihes of position. 

It was apparently in 1543 that Knox's spiritual, 
awakening, or at least his conversion to Protestant- 
ism, took place under the preaching of a former 
monk, Thomas William of Athelstaneford, the par- 
ticular passage of Scripture that first impressed him 
being the seventeenth chapter of John's Gospel. A 
few months later he came under the influence of 
George Wishart (1513-46), a powerful Protestant 
preacher for whom he conceived a great affection. 
Klnox narrowly escaped sharing Wishart's arrest, 
and was profoundly moved by that vigorous mis- 
sionary's death by fire at St. Andrew's on March 
I, 1546. Wishart had represented not merely Prot-^ 
estantism but English interests. His opponents 
had sided with France and the papacy. As a 
result of this partly religious, partly political, 
contention. Cardinal Beaton was murdered by some 
of Wishart's supporters, on May 29, 1546. Knox 
had no part in the deed; but, once done, he fully 
approved of it; and when, some time after, the con- 
spirators and their friends took possession of the 
Castle of St. Andrews for safety, he joined them, in 
April, 1547. Here he was chosen minister of the 
little company, and entered on his office with a fiery 



258 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

sermon against the papacy and all its works. Here, 
first of any in Scotland, he publicly administered the 
Lord's Supper in Protestant fashion. English help 
did not come to the beleaguered garrison; but the 
French party procured aid from France. The* 
castle was captured; and from September, 1547, 
to February or March, 1549, Knox suffered the fate « 
of a galley-slave, chained to the rowing-bench 
of a French war- vessel. Even under these circum- 
stances, and the added distress of severe illness, his 
courage did not desert him; and he confidently 
trusted, and made others believe, that he would yet 
preach in his native land. 

Knox's release through an exchange of prisoners 
was followed by a pastorate under the auspices of 
the Protestant government which ruled England in 
the name of Edward VI, at Berwick on the Tweed. 
His success there was great, and resulted in his 
promotion to Newcastle, his appointment as one of 
the English royal chaplains, and finally the offer of* 
the bishopric of Rochester. That important dignity 
he refused, not so much by reason of any opposition 
to the episcopal office, as from dislike of the revenues 
and state of the English prelates, and his own patri- 
otic determination to renew his work in Scotland as 
soon as opportunity might offer. Though in his 
judgment, as in that of the Reformers generally, all 
ministers were spiritually equal, he objected no more 
than Calvin or Melanchthon to the retention of purely 



JOHN KNOX 259 

administrative supervision by a "bishop" over the 
ministers of a district. 

The death of Edward VI in 1553 was followed in 
England by the Roman reaction under Queen Mary. , 
Knox saw that further work in England was impos- 
sible for the present, and after waiting quite as long 
as safety permitted, he, like many of his fellow-, 
Protestants, fled to the Continent early in 1554. He 
made his way promptly to Geneva, where he was 
heartily welcomed by Calvin, with whom he was . 
already in spiritual sympathy. His stay at this time 
in Geneva was short, however. In September, 1554,. 
a call came to him to become the pastor of the Eng- 
lish exiles in the German city of Frankfort. Thither 
he went at Calvin's insistence; but his pastorate 
proved one of his most stormy experiences. The 
refugees there gathered had all fled from England in^ 
fear for their lives; but even a common misery 
could not prevent the outbreaking among them of 
what was soon to be the great Puritan controversy of 
Queen Elizabeth's reign. Some wished to use the 
Prayer-Book as it had been established in England in 
the reign of the late Edward VI; others, of whom 
Knox was one, thought that it preserved too many 
vestiges of Romanism and favored a simpler service. 
Knox found his position untenable, and in March, 
1555, was back in the friendly shelter of Geneva. • 

Meanwhile the situation in Scotland had improved 
from Knox's point of view. Mary of Guise, the- 



26o GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

French mother of the youthful Mary "Queen of 
Scots," though a devoted Catholic, had coquetted 
with nobles of Protestant leanings to obtain the 
regency in 1554. The return of England under Mary 
to the Roman obedience favored the growth of 
Protestantism in Scotland by reason of the dispo- 

.sition then characteristic of the hard-pressed little 
country to follow a policy opposite to that which 
England pursued. Under such circumstances Knox 

•judged the time opportune, and, in September, 1555, 
was once more in Scotland. Here he preached 
widely and with effect; but his success was even 

•greater in organizing a definitely Protestant party. 
He persuaded the leading Protestant sympathizers 
to cease attending mass. He entered into relations 
with three youthful nobles who were to be leaders 
in the Protestant cause — Lord Erskine, afterward 
Earl of Mar, Lord James Stuart, afterward Earl of 
Moray, both to be regents of Scotland, and Lord 
Lome, afterward Earl of Argyle. He defied the 

.bishops. But Knox evidently judged the time not 
fully ripe for successful overthrow of the old church. 

•The Genevan English-speaking congregation urged 
him to return, and in September, 1556, he was back 
in the Swiss city. 

Here in Geneva Knox made his headquarters 
till January, 1559. He was pastor of the English 
congregation. He was on affectionate terms with 
Calvin, whom he intensely admired. He spoke 



JOHN KNOX 261 

French fluently, and his Genevan stay was inter- 
rupted with courageous missionary work in Dieppe- 
in France and by visits to other French cities in aid 
of the Evangelical cause. At Geneva he published,* 
in 1558, what proved later a source of great annoy- 
ance to himself, his First Blast of the Trumpet against 
the Monstrous Regiment of Women. Moved by the 
opposition of Mary Tudor in England, of Catherine 
de' Medici in France, and of the regent, Mary of 
Guise, in Scotland, to the Protestant cause, Knox 
argued that no woman could rightfully exercise 
sovereignty. He did not foresee that England would 
soon have a Protestant queen — and Queen Elizabeth 
never forgave him. 

While Knox was thus busied, the Protestant cause 
was gaining in Scotland. On December 3, 1557," 
its leaders drafted at Edinburgh the first Scottish 
"Covenant," agreeing ''to maintain, set forward, and 
establish the most blessed Word of God and His 
congregation," from which they soon obtained the 
nickname of the " Lords of the Congregation." The 
political situation soon strongly favored their cause. 
Fear of overbearing French influence was increased* 
when the long betrothal of Mary, " Queen of Scots," 
ended in her marriage in April, 1558, to the heir to 
the French ttrone who, in July of the next year, 
was to become Francis H of France. In November, . 
1558, Elizabeth became Queen of England. By the 
Roman party she was held to be illegitimate, as the 



262 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

^ daughter of Anne Boleyn, whose marriage to Henry 
VIII that party had never recognized. If she had 
•no right to the English throne, then Mary " Queen 
•of Scots" was queen of England. Mary asserted her 

•claim. Elizabeth in self-defense could do no less 
than countenance the Protestant party in Scotland, 
and many not Protestants trembled at the thought 
of the union of France, England, and Scotland under 
the joint sovereignty of Francis and Mary. So it 

. was that Knox, from his post of observation in 
Geneva, deemed the time for battle to have come at 
last, and on May 2, 1559, arrived in Edinburgh. 
Intense, religious, argumentative, democratic, fear- 
less, intolerant, forceful, Knox was just the man for 
leadership in the crisis he had so laboriously pre-* 

• pared. It was not a religious struggle only. To a 
large degree it was a great national conflict against 
foreign dominance in which he fought. 

• At Perth Knox heard that the regent, Mary of 
Guise, had declared him an outlaw. He replied 
with a vehement denunciation of the mass. The 
mob rose. The images in the churches were de- 

*stroyed and the monasteries were sacked. Both 
sides raised what troops they could. Scotland was 

•in civil war. Similar scenes of violent abolition 
took place at St. Andrew's and elsewhere, and the 
nobles hastened to put themselves in possession of 
the church lands. The regent was drawing her sup- 
port from France, and Knox now negotiated success- 



JOHN KNOX 263 

fully for pecuniary assistance for his cause from 
England. On his advice, the '' Lords of the Congre- 
gation," in October, 1559, suspended Mary of Guise 
from the regency so far as they could, and the battle 
was practically decided for the Protestant cause, 
when, in January, 1560, an Enghsh fleet, sent by 
Elizabeth, came to its assistance, and was soon fol- 
lowed by an English army. The two rival forces 
struggled ineffectively for a time, but, in June, 1560, 
the regent died, and within a month the French and 
English forces were withdrawn by treaty. In the 
absence of the queen, Mary, in France, it was agreed 
that the government of Scotland should be in the 
hands of a council of Scotchmen. It was a great* 
victory for self-government in Scotland, against 
French interference, as well as for the right of the 
land to determine its religious affairs, and the chief 
agent in the result had been Knox himself. 

In August the Scottish Parliament met, under rad- • 
ical Protestant control. In form it was not strictly 
legal, for it lacked the consent of the queen, but it 
was fairly representative of the nation. Its action* 
was drastic. Romanism was abolished. Death was 
threatened for a third conviction of celebrating the 
mass. A Confession of Faith, drafted by Knox and 
five ministerial associates, and Calvinistic in doctrine, 
was adopted. The ancient Roman edifice was utterly 
overthrown. 

This radical action made necessary the complete 



264 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

reorganization of the Scottish church. Knox and 
his ministerial associates had been laboring on a 
constitution before the meeting of Parliament, and it 
was now completed after the adjournment of that 
body. It is known as the First Book of Discipline.'^* 
The essential features of the system of church gov- 
ernment therein outlined were derived from Cal- 
vin, and are of the type known as Presbyterian. In 
each local congregation was a minister, elders, and 
deacons, all chosen by the people they served, the 
minister permanently with the approval of other 
ministers of the region, and the elders and deacons 
by the congregation for terms of one year. To the 
deacons the care of the temporalities and the relief 
of the poor was intrusted. The elders with the min- 
ister, the "session" of Presbyterian usage, were the 
disciplinary council. Neighboring ministers and 
elders met weekly for Bible-study — an assembly, that 
after Knox's death became the ''Presbytery." The 
ministers and elders of a district met as a superior 
court in the "Synod;" and chosen ministers and lay 
representatives convened as a supreme ecclesiastical 
court for all Scotland once a year in the "General 
Assembly," the first session of which gathered in 
December, 1560. In two features Knox departed 
from the Genevan system. He would have "super- 
intendents" in administrative supervision over the 

I That prepared largely by Andrew Melville, and approved by 
the General Assembly in 1578, is the "Second," 



JOHN KNOX 265 

ministers of given districts; and owing to the scarcity 
of suitable ministers, he provided for "readers" till 
the want could be supplied. In public worship Knox 
introduced substantially the Genevan service, in the 
form in which it had been used in his congregation in 
that city. This made the sermon central, and pro- 
vided opportunity both for free and written prayers. 
Could Knox have done as he wished, the income of 
the old church would have been used for schools, 
church expenses, and charity; but he could do nothing 
with the greedy nobles who seized it far themselves. 
Owing to their opposition the " Book" was not estab- 
lished by law, but it became the pattern essentially 
in accordance with which the Scottish church was 
organized. 

Knox's battle seemed about won before the close* 
of 1560. He himself was chosen minister in Edin- 
burgh. But a hard struggle was before him to main- 
tain what had been secured. Mary "Queen of« 
Scots" became a widow in December, 1560, and re- 
turned to Scotland in the August following, deter- 
mined to bring back the country to Rome, and to. 
secure for herself the succession to the English 
throne. Her charm and shrewdness, and the sym- 
pathy felt for her bereavement, won her many 
friends. In Knox and in the spirit which he had 
fostered she met her chief obstacles. The struggle 
was waged on his part with weapons of invective 
that seemed coarse and often brutal, but the contest 



266 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

was none the less one for popular sovereignty and the 
right of the majority to determine its form of religion. 
"What are you in this commonwealth?" asked 
Mary of Knox in 1563. "A subject born within 
the same," he replied, "and though neither earl, lord, 
nor baron, God has made me a profitable member." 
He criticized her Romanizing policy unsparingly, 
declaring when she set up Roman worship in her . 
own chapel that "one mass was more fearful to him I 
than ten thousand armed enemies," and boldly/ 
affirmed to .her face that subjects may rightfully 
depose a ruler who opposes the Word of God. 

Knox, however, could hardly have succeeded as • 
he did in the struggle had it not been for Mary's 
misdeeds and misfortunes. She angered public sen- • 
timent, in 1563, by proposing a marriage with Don 
Carlos, son of Philip II of Spain. She quarreled 
with Darnley, whom she married in 1565. She made 
prominent among her advisers an Italian favorite, 
David Rizzio, who was murdered in March, 1566, 
by a conspiracy of disaffected nobles, in which the 
jealous Darnley himself was involved. On February 
10, 1567, Darnley was himself murdered — with 
what connivance on Mary's part has been ever since 
one of the battlegrounds of historic discussion. On 
May 15, following, she married the Earl of Both well, 
who had had a share in Darnley's death. Public* 
opinion was outraged. On June 15 Mary was taken • 
captive by her nobles and soon forced to abdicate in 



JOHN KNOX 267 

favor of her infant son, James VI, and a regency to» 
be administered by the Protestant Earl of Moray. 
In the discussions following Mary's capture, Knox 
seems to have contributed the decisive influence in 
favor of forcing her abdication. The Parliament 
which followed, in December, 1567, gave full legal 
establishment to the enactments of 1560, and the 
Scottish church. 

Knox hoped that his work was done ; but the con- 
dition of the land remained a cause of anxiety to him 
as long as he lived. Mary escaped from imprison- 
ment in 1568, and found many supporters. Her 
defeat was followed by her flight to England and 
her imprisonment by Elizabeth, where she remained 
a scheming captive, menacing the Protestantism of^ 
both lands, till her execution as a conspirator against* 
the English queen in 1587. 

In October, 1570, Knox suffered a paralytic* 
stroke. He regained partial strength and labored 
with something of his old fire till shortly before his 
death. On November 24, 1572, he met his end, in 
calm assurance, and in full enjoyment of spiritual 
comfort. To some extent he was a disappointed* 
man in his last days. He saw many of his cherished 
plans for the church and education frustrated, as he 
believed, by the greed and unspirituality of the 
nobles. But when he died at Edinburgh it was in 
the fulness of an accomplished work of vast dimen- 
sions; and no more fitting characterization was ever 



268 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

spoken of him than the often-quoted words of Regent 
Morton at his burial: "Here lieth a man who in his 
life never feared the face of man." 

QUESTIONS 

1. What was the condition of Scotland before the Ref- 
ormation? Why was Scotland closely bound politically to 
France ? 

2. Who was the first Scotchman to die for Protestantism ? 
Was Protestantism late in getting a foothold in Scotland ? 

3. What were Knox's parentage, birthplace, and education ? 
What influence had John Major on him ? 

4. Under what influences was Knox converted to Protes- 
tantism ? What were his relations to Wishart ? 

5. How came Knox to be in the Castle of St. Andrews ? 
His ministry there? How signalized? His experience as a 
prisoner ? 

6. What was Knox's work in England ? How was it 
regarded ? 

* 7. What was the value to Knox of his stay in Geneva? 
The Frankfort episode ? 

8. How did he organize the Reformation movement in 
Scotland in 1555-56 ? 

9. What office did Knox fill in his second stay in Geneva ? 
ms First Blast? 

10. What political conditions facilitated his work in Scot- 
land in 1559 ? Character of the reform movement ? 

11. The work of the Parliament of 1560? How did 
Knox organize the church ? 

12. What were Knox's relations to Mary "Queen of 
Scots"? How was she injured by her own misdeeds and 
mistakes ? 

13. Knox's death ? His character and work ? 



JOHN KNOX 269 

ADDITIONAL READING 

Thomas McCrie, The Life of Jokn Knox (Edinburgh, 181 2, 

and many later editions). 
Peter H. Brown, John Knox, a Biography (London, 1895). 
Henry Cowan, John Knox (New York, 1905). 



IGNATIUS LOYOLA 



XV 
IGNATIUS LOYOLA 

The Reformation age witnessed not merely the 
birth of Protestantism; it beheld a great revival of 
the spiritual life in the Roman Catholic church itself 
— a movement to which the name " Counter-Refor- 
mation" has often, but not wholly adequately, been 
given. To a large extent this awakening was induced 
by the great Protestant revolt. But it is not wholly 
traceable to that upheaval. Its beginnings had been 
manifested before the time of Luther; and, like the 
Protestant revival, it owed much to the quickening 
spirit of the Renaissance. Unlike Protestantism, this 
awakening had no quarrel with mediaeval doctrine. 
It was content with a better-educated and more 
faithful clergy, the abolition of the grosser abuses, 
and a warmer spiritual life. 

In no country in Europe^ was this Roman revival 
so conspicuously in evidence as in Spain. That 
land was rising to a political significance heretofore 
unsuspected, that made it the marvel of the closing 
years of the fifteenth century. The marriage of 
Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, in 1469, 
ultimately resulted in placing the larger part of the 
Spanish peninsula under their effective rule. Their 

I In this sketch the writer has borrowed some sentences from 
his The Reformation. 

273 



2 74 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

conquest of Granada, in 1492, ended Moorish sov- 
ereignty in that land; and the same year witnessed 
the discovery, under Spanish auspices, of the New 
World, from which a wealth soon flowed to the 
Spanish treasury such as no mediaeval king had 
enjoyed. Spain, by the beginning of the sixteenth 
century, had suddenly become well-nigh the most 
powerful land of Europe; and this political growth 
had been accompanied by a great effort for the 
intellectual and moral improvement of the Spanish 
church in which the deeply religious queen, Isabella, 
and her trusted religious adviser, Ximenes, had been 
leaders. The Spanish church had awakened, before 
1500, to new zeal. Fanatically tenacious of medi- 
aeval doctrine, it tolerated no change in its theology, 
but it was the most thoroughly aroused section of 
Latin Christendom. Of this Spanish awakening the 
most characteristic and influential product was to be 
Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Company of 
Jesus, or, as its members are generally nicknamed, 
the Jesuits. 

liiigo Lopez de Recalde was born of the noble 
Spanish family of Loyola, at its castle in the 
northern province of Guipuzcoa, in 149 1. As a 
boy, he was trained in the court of Ferdinand and 
Isabella, and soon developed marked talents as a 
soldier. Of unshakable courage and a born leader 
of men, he, though the youngest officer present, de- 
cided the slender garrison to defend Pamplona against 



IGNATIUS LOYOLA 275 

the overwhelming French army, in 1 521. In the 
storming of the city by its besiegers he showed heroic 
firmness in defense, but he fell severely wounded by 
a ball which shattered his leg. Then followed long 
weeks of invalidism. The young soldier would not 
readily abandon his career, and the ill-knit bones 
were repeatedly broken and reset in the vain hope 
of a more perfect recovery. He had at last to 
recognize that the soldier's pathway was closed to 
him forever. 

To the man of thirty this was a distressing out- 
come; but a new vision had come to him in his 
invalidism. He had read eagerly such books as he 
could find — a Life of Christ and sketches of the 
saints. He would imitate them in a new and holier 
warfare as his great fellow-countryman, Saint Dom- 
inick, had done. He would be a knight of the Spirit, 
waging warfare with the powers of evil. He would 
serve a nobler lady than any earthly princess — the 
Virgin herself. 

As soon as returning strength permitted, Loyola 
put his new resolutions into practice. He offered his 
armor at the shrine of the Virgin in Montserrat, and 
soon began a life of self-mortification in the Domini- 
can monastery in Manresa. Here he fought the 
battles for the mastery of his own spirit which ever 
after colored his religious life. He fasted and prayed. 
He painfully recalled his sins, till, feeling that their 
remembrance was a hindrance to his spiritual prog- 



276 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

ress, he resolved to thrust even their recollection be- 
hind him and to recount them no more, not even 
in prayer. He believed that the mysteries of the 
Trinity, of the Incarnation, and of the creation of 
the world were revealed to him in vision; but he re- 
jected equally clear spiritual suggestions as of satanic 
origin; and he made the test of the divine or devilish 
impulses of his soul their comfort and help, or their 
disquieting effects. Here he conceived his Spiritual 
Exercises, based indeed in part on earlier treatises by 
Cisnero of Manresa and the Netherlandish mystics, 
Zerbolt of Zutphen and Mauburnus of Zwolle, but 
profoundly original in their treatment. This mar- 
velous work is a drillbook of spiritual self-mastery. 
Under the guidance of a religious master-at-arms, 
the disciple is to exercise himself for four weeks in 
attempts to gain, by strenuous effort of will, a vivid 
consciousness of man's sinfulness, and of the life and 
saving work of Christ. The world as a battleground 
between his Lord and the powers of evil is to be made 
real to his imagination; and the great facts of salva- 
tion are to become part of his mental imagery. Never 
was there a more remarkable or a more successful 
attempt to awaken, control, and direct mental pic- 
tures. In the order which Ignatius was later to 
establish each member had to pass through the dis- 
cipline thus prescribed; and its effects on most 
minds must have been an unforgettable quickening 
of the spiritual imagination by which what is usually 



IGNATIUS LOYOLA 277 

fantasy was directed into definite pictures of great 
Christian verities. Loyola would use the visions of 
the spirit to the full; yet control and direct them 
absolutely. 

This period of spiritual conflict in Manresa was 
followed by a determined effort to engage in mis- 
sionary activity. Loyola made his way, in 1523, to 
Jerusalem. But the Franciscans in authority among 
the Latin Christians there looked with disfavor on 
his enterprise; and, finding it impossible to accom- 
plish his purpose, he returned to Spain. The main 
result of this courageous, but fruitless, enterprise was 
to convince Loyola that for effective work he must 
obtain an education. He now began with the very 
rudiments of Latin in a boys' class in Barcelona. 
Thence he went for further study at Alcala and to 
Salamanca. It was hard work; but his persever- 
ance was inexhaustible. Loyola was showing him- 
self, as always, a leader; and he soon gathered a little 
following, which he drilled in his Exercises. This 
work excited, however, the suspicions of the ecclesi- 
astical authorities, and he narrowly escaped condem- 
nation as an alumbrado, or a heretical claimant of 
special divine illumination. Forbidden to speak on 
religious themes for four years by the investigators 
of his orthodoxy, since they deemed him still too 
ignorant, he left Spain for Paris in 1528, and there 
took up his studies in the College Montaigu, proba- 
bly just as John Calvin left that seat of learning. In 



278 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

circumstances of great poverty he pursued his work 
in the university. The years of his stay in Paris were 
a period of pubHc excitement and involved much of 
the beginnings of the Reformation in France; but 
he shared in no conspicuous event. With the ut- 
most persistence, on the contrary, Loyola strove to 
gain personal influence over his fellow-students, and 
to train them by his Exercises. A group from most 
various social ranks soon looked to him as its leader. 
A simple Savoyard, Pierre Lefevre, a brilliant noble- 
man of Navarre, Francisco de Xavier, a Spaniard 
of great learning and organizing talent, Diego Lainez, 
Alonso Salmeron, likewise a fellow-countryman of 
Loyola, who was to be a preacher of power, Simon 
Rodriguez, a Portuguese, and still another Spaniard, 
Nicolo Bobadilla, with two or three others consti- 
tuted the httle companionship. 

With the friends just named Loyola entered into 
vows in the church of St. Mary on Montmartre, then 
just outside of Paris, on August 15, 1534. The 
student associates pledged themselves to engage in 
missionary labors and the care of the ill in Jerusalem, 
or, should that prove impossible, wherever the pope 
should direct. It was at first a student organization 
for missionary effort, and, as such, the movement 
was soon carried from the university of Paris to those 
of Louvain and Cologne. 

Ill- health compelled Loyola to return to Spain in 
1535, but in 1537 the associates gathered in Venice 



IGNATIUS LOYOLA 279 

to carry out their purpose of going-to Jerusalem. War 
rendering that impossible, they began preaching in the 
cities of Italy. Loyola now determined their name. 
Italy had seen many military companies in the service 
of worldly princes; his should be the Societas Jesu, 
the military company of Jesus, for a nobler warfare, 
but like them bound together by soldierly obedience. 
The approval of the pope was won with difficulty, 
but in September, 1540, Paul III sanctioned the 
association, and, the next year, Loyola was chosen 
its first "general." 

In Loyola's view few were fitted for membership 
in the society, and all who entered it must undergo 
long mental and spiritual discipHne. As in an army, 
each must cheerfully and promptly make his supe- 
rior's will his own, yielding absolute obedience unless 
the command involved sin. Each should be as- 
signed to the task for which his talents and education 
best fitted him. That the members should be free 
for any suitable task, they were burdened with no 
prescribed dress or lengthy religious duties, such as 
marked most orders of monks. No religious agency 
was ever more ingeniously devised. It gave room 
for the exercise of the most varied and highly trained 
talents. It appealed to two of the strongest motives 
that men can feel — labor for others and for self- 
development in the service of God; but it conditioned 
their answer to this appeal on a self-surrender and an 
obedience that, while leaving room for a high degree 



28o GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

of individuality, abdicates the highest exercises of the 
individual judgment and will. 

Under Loyola'^ generalship, which lasted till his 
death in Rome on July 31, 1556, the society that he 
founded developed a most manifold activity, and its 
growth and efficiency but increased under his imme- 
diate successors, his early disciple, Diego Lainez 
(1557-65), and Francisco Borgia (1565-72). It has 
borne ever since its foundation the impress of his 
masterful mind. To use Loyola's favorite Pauline 
quotation, he would have it made "all things to all 
men." From Italy its preachers were soon reaching 
out to all the countries of Europe. By Loyola's 
death it counted more than a thousand members, 
settled in a hundred places. Under Xavier, ap- 
pointed to the task by Loyola himself, a great mis- 
sionary campaign was begun in India in 1542, that 
before Xavier's death, ten years later, had carried the 
gospel by his means, all too superficially it is true, to 
Malacca and Japan. He was but the forerunner of 
a great company of Jesuit missionaries, who were to 
labor in India, China, and Japan, and in North and 
South America. Their story, if not always one of 
wisdom or of effective method, is one in many 
instances of intrepid heroism, that shines on the 
pages of missionary consecration ; and in its work for 
missions the most winsome aspect of the Society of 
Jesus is to be found. 

It was, however, as an opponent of Protestantism 



IGNATIUS LOYOLA 281 

and as a molding force in the revival of Roman 
Catholicism on the European continent that the so- 
ciety did its most effective, if not its most praiseworthy 
work. It early devoted itself to the control of higher 
education, a means of influence the importance of 
which was clearly perceived by Loyola. Much in 
the same way as that born leader availed himself of 
the individualism of his age, and yet made it sub- 
servient to a single purpose in his society at large, 
the Jesuits in their schools took into service the 
admired humanistic culture of the Renaissance, and 
yet held it in absolute obedience to the church. 
Their schools and their instructors who gained a 
foothold in older seats of learning were greatly ad- 
mired for more than a century after the founding of 
the society, and their teaching, the fame of which 
often attracted pupils whose Protestantism was luke- 
warm, proved a potent means of extending their 
influence and renewing the sway of the church which 
they served. 

Though no part of the original intention of the so- 
ciety, its political activity soon became one of its 
most formidable weapons. That activity was the 
natural outgrowth of its constitution and principles. 
The body was international in membership, and 
bound by strict obedience to generals Hke Loyola, 
Lainez, and Borgia, of surpassing political gifts. 
To them the members reported the minutest affairs 
of the lands in which they were stationed. The so- 



282 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

ciety could not but become a political force. No 
wonder that the Jesuits proved the chief agents in 
restoring many of the princes of Germany to the 
Roman obedience, that they were the terror of such 
sovereigns as Elizabeth of England or William the 
Silent of the Netherlands, or that the governments 
even of the most Catholic lands came ultimately to 
look upon their activity with fear and hostility. 

In their teaching and practice the Jesuits not 
merely emphasized obedience to the papacy, but 
those features of Romanism which are most at 
variance with Protestantism. Devotion to the 
Virgin was cultivated. Frequent participation in the 
Lord's Supper was enjoined. The confessional was 
exalted and its use impressed on the people, and 
special papal privileges gave the members of the 
society larger powers of absolution than those ordi- 
narily possessed by simple priests. But this em- 
phasis on the confessional became the doorway to 
what has seemed to many of the Roman church, as 
well as to Protestants, a lax conception of moral 
values. The views of sin characteristic of the so- 
ciety were superficial. An elaborate and unstrenu- 
ous system of casuistry was developed. Results were 
exalted at the expense of the moral worth of the 
means by which they were achieved; and that only 
came to be considered fully sin, in the theological 
sense, which is done with a clear recognition of its 
evil character, and a conscious consent of the will. 



IGNATIUS LOYOLA 283 

The general tone of Jesuit morality was unstrenuous, 
not merely when compared with that of Protestant- 
ism, but when examined in the light of the stricter 
teachings of the Roman church itself. 

With its faults and virtues, the society founded by 
Loyola has been since the Reformation the most 
powerful force in the Roman church. It has had its 
missionaries, its martyrs, its men of saintly lives and 
high consecration in abundance. It has also had 
many a political intriguant and schemer. It did 
more than any other agency to limit the advance of 
Protestantism; but it has intensified and developed 
those tendencies in the Roman church against which 
Protestantism protested. Its power is still unex- 
hausted, and the work of Loyola must be regarded 
as one of the most abiding legacies which the six- 
teenth century has bequeathed to the modern world. 

QUESTIONS 

1. Was the "Counter-Reformation" wholly a reaction 
from Protestantism? With what kind of a Reformation 
was it content ? 

2. What was the relation of Spain to the Roman awaken- 
ing ? Why ? 

3. What was the early life of Loyola? How did he turn 
to Christian things ? 

4. Describe the chief characteristics of Loyola's religious 
experience. 

5. What were the Spiritual Exercises? What did they 
aim to accomplish ? 

6. Give some account of Loyola's student life. 



284 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

7. Who were some of Loyola's early companions and how 
did he win them ? 

8. When and with what purpose was the Society of Jesus 
founded ? Its peculiarities ? The meaning of the name ? 

9. When did Loyola die? Who succeeded him in the 
generalship of the society ? 

10. What can be said of the missionary work of the 
society ? Who was its most famous missionary ? Where did 
he labor ? 

11. What was the relation of the society to education ? 

12. What may be said of its political tendencies ? 

13. What aspects of Roman Catholicism did the society 
emphasize ? Why have its moral tendencies been criticized ? 

14. What may be said of the extent of the influence of the 
society ? 

ADDITIONAL READING 

T. M. Lindsay, A History of the Reformation (New York, 

1906, 1907), II, 526-63. 
Stewart Rose, Ignatius Loyola and the Early Jesuits (London, 

1891). 



GEORGE FOX 



XVI 
GEORGE FOX 

The English Reformation was in many respects 
unlike that on the Continent. Under Henry VIII 
political interests were far more potent than religious 
considerations. The country as a whole was not 
anxious for doctrinal revolution and was not pro- 
foundly moved spiritually. It looked upon the 
papal authority as foreign, and willingly saw it re- 
jected by the masterful sovereign. It acquiesced 
in his confiscation of monastic property. It accepted 
the relatively slight changes that he made in worship; 
but, like the king, the people had little criticism of 
the broad fundamentals of mediaeval belief. At the 
close of Henry VIII's reign, in 1547, three parties 
existed — a large body, of whom the king himself 
was fairly representative, insistent that England 
should be for Englishmen, in church as well as in 
state, but not sympathizing with a Reformation like 
that of Luther; and two small factions, one holding 
to the ancient connection with Rome, and the other 
Protestant as Germany and Switzerland understood 
Protestantism. 

After the death of Henry VIII the small parties 
successively controlled England. Under the nominal 
rule of Edward VI, to 1553, the Protestants were in 

287 



288 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

power, and to their supremacy were due the English 
Prayer-Book and the Protestant Articles of Faith. 
Under Mary, to 1558, the Roman faction was upper- 
most; and persecutions, mild, indeed, compared 
with those on the Continent, but sufficient to give her 
the name "Bloody" in memory, marked her reign. 
At her accession, in 1558, Elizabeth was confronted 
by a most difficult problem. She would rule the 
English church, independently of the pope, as her 
father had done. To this end, and to maintain her 
foreign politics and even her own claim to the 
throne, she must rule as a Protestant. But she 
could not afford to alienate those of her subjects to 
whom any extreme Protestantism was distasteful. 
Hence her own policy was one of compromise — a 
course which her own lack of deep religious con- 
victions rendered the easier. 

From many points of view EHzabeth's policy was 
eminently successful. She avoided the civil wars 
between Protestants and Catholics which contempo- 
raneously devastated France. The country pros- 
pered. The vast majority of the parish clergy, and 
of their parishioners, accepted the transition from 
Mary's Romanism to Elizabeth's moderate Protes- 
tantism without resistance. But from the first decade 
of her long reign a growing party, called the Puri- 
tans, felt that her reformation was far from thor- 
ough, desired the removal of inefficient clergy, the 
establishment everywhere of an earnest, preaching 



GEORGE FOX 289 

ministry, the purification of worship by the removal of 
what it deemed reHcs of Roman superstition, and the 
enforcement of rigorous church discipline. These 
changes Elizabeth resisted as divisive. The Puritans, 
thus balked, went a step farther, and questioned the 
rightfulness of an ecclesiastical constitution in which 
the sovereign and the bishops whom she appointed 
blocked what the Puritans deemed such needful re- 
forms. The more radical of the party, the " Sepa- 
ratists," ancestors of the Congregationalists, proposed 
withdrawal from the government church as the only 
remedy; but the great majority of Puritans believed a 
national church desirable and thought that the Church 
of England could be reconstituted on what they held 
to be a more scriptural model. Calvinists in theology, 
they found their model of what the church should be 
largely in the Presbyterianism which had come forth 
from Geneva. To them the queen showed utmost 
hostility; but all through her long reign a real 
religious awakening of the English people was in 
progress, and when she died, in 1603, religious ques- 
tions had become the foremost problems in English 
thought. 

It was a turmoiled situation, therefore, that faced 
the Scottish James I on his accession to the English 
throne ; and his want of skill and evident partisanship 
but fanned the elements of discord. Religiously, he 
took the anti-Puritan side. His political policy soon 
drove to that side, also, the lovers of constitutional 



290 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

liberty. On his death, in 1625, his son, Charles I, 
but embittered the struggle by attempts to crush 
Puritanism, to rule without Parliament, and to force 
episcopacy and the Prayer-Book on stubborn Scot- 
land. In 1642, the great civil war between king and 
Parliament began, which led soon to the overthrow of 
episcopacy, and, in 1649, to the execution of Charles 
himself. An advisory religious assembly, which be- 
gan its sessions by parliamentary appointment at 
Westminster in 1643, prepared a strongly Calvinistic 
Confession of Faith as the creed of England, and 
estabhshed, though very imperfectly, the Presbyterian 
form of government. 

Meanwhile, the surging religious life of England 
was manifesting other forms. Independency, or 
Congregationalism, was widespread in the army 
which Cromwell had led to victory. Baptists, though 
relatively far fewer, were growing in numbers. The 
dominant religious type was, however, the Puritan; 
and with the Puritan, no less than with the Episco- 
palian of that day, the minister held his office ulti- 
mately by appointment by the state. Even Congre- 
gationaHsts accepted many state appointments from 
the friendly hand of Cromwell. Though generally 
men of character, these state-made ministers were 
not always of personal religious experience. The 
prevailing type of Puritan theology was intensely 
insistent on the Calvinistic doctrines of election and 
reprobation; and in its profound reverence for the 



GEORGE FOX 291 

Bible taught that God had once for all revealed him- 
self to men through the Scriptures, and no further 
revelation was to be sought than that contained in 
the "Word of God." 

It was in this situation that George Fox, the found- 
er of the Quakers, began his work. Fox was born 
in July, 1624, in Fenny Drayton, about in the center 
of England, the son of a weaver of upright character 
but poor circumstances.^ His education was of the 
slightest, but he grew up a serious-minded youth, 
who "never wronged man or woman. "^ At twelve, 
he was apprenticed to a shoemaker who also dealt 
in cattle and wool. His conversion came about in a 
simple, though curious, manner. Invited by some 
friends, who were nominal Christians, to drink with 
them he consented; but when they proposed that 
he who should first leave off should pay for all. Fox's 
conscience awoke at the inconsistency of such 
drunken practices with the Christian profession and 
he promptly left them. It was the first ground-note 
of Fox's rehgious experience, the conviction that if 
religion is sincere it must rule the whole life; he 
became "sensible" that the majority of nominal 
Christians "did not possess what they professed."^ 
As he struggled and prayed, a further experience 

I The best account of Fox is in his own Journals^ which have 
been abridged and published in convenient form by Professor 
R. M. Jones, George Fox, an Autobiography (Philadelphia, 1903). 

a Jones, George Fox, I, 67. 

3 Ibid., I, 68, 69. 



292 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

came to him. He believed that God spoke directly, 
though inwardly, to his soul. "At the command of 
God, the ninth of the seventh month, 1643, 1 1^^^ my 
relations, and broke off all familiarity or fellowship 
with young or old."^ Then followed a period of 
wandering and of consultation with ministers as to 
his spiritual state; but to no comfort. Early in 
1646, however, as he was approaching the town of 
Coventry, "the Lord opened to me that if all were 
believers, then they were all born of God, and passed 
from death to life; and that none were true believers 
but such; and though others said they were be- 
lievers, yet they were not."^ 

Tried by this test, which made Christianity a 
vital, personal experience, the ministers, from whom 
he had had so little comfort, seemed to Fox to be 
wanting; and he came to the further conclusion 
"that being bred at Oxford or Cambridge was not 
enough to fit and qualify men to be ministers of 
Christ."^ With this radical criticism of the ministry 
came a dislike for church edifices, or "steeple 
houses" as Fox called them, since the Lord "did not 
dwell in these temples .... but in people's 
hearts." The true light of the Christian is the in- 
ward revelation of "the pure knowledge of God, 
and of Christ alone, without the help of any man, 
book or writing. "4 

1 Jones, George Fox, I, 68, 69. 3 Ihid., I, 75. 

2 Ihid., 1, 74. 4 Ihid., I, 76, 82. 



GEORGE FOX 293 

These doctrines of the "inner light," and of the 
duty of complete conformity of life to its guidance, 
whatever the cost might be, were always the really 
fundamental principles of Fox, and became those of 
the society to which its critics soon gave the name 
" Quakers," but which he preferred to call " Friends." 
With them were associated many relatively minor 
peculiarities, some of them directly derived from 
these principles, and others from views which had 
appeared and reappeared in the Middle Ages and 
Reformation history, among bodies like the Wal- 
denses, or the Anabaptists. Some of them he may 
have derived from contact with the early English 
Baptists, who, in turn, received them from fellow- 
believers in Holland.^ Among the direct conse- 
quences of his principle of the "inner light," was his 
conviction that all who were moved by the Spirit of 
God, whether men or women, were true preachers, 
and that none not so moved, or who were dependent 
on appointment in a state church for their creden- 
tials of authority, deserved any ministerial recogni- 
tion whatever. From his conception of the essential 
equality of all Christians, and his strong hatred of all 
shams, Fox came to insist that the hat should never 
be removed as a sign of the inferiority of one man to 
another, that no merely complimentary titles should 

I See Robert Barclay, The Inner Life 0} the Religious Societies 
0} the Commonwealth (London, 1879), pp. 221-52, 273, 298, 352, 
501, 518. 



294 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

be used, ^ and that individuals however highly placed, 
should be addressed as "thou" and "thee" instead 
of by the plural "you," which then implied a defer- 
ence to rank which its employment no longer signi- 
fies. Since all true religious life is, in his opinion, 
inward, he rejected all outward sacraments as un- 
necessary. To his thinking, the Calvinistic division 
of mankind into the elect and the reprobate is un- 
warranted, and the Holy Spirit moves effectively on 
all hearts that will welcome his influence. In sym- 
pathy with many earlier religious movements, he 
understood the New Testament and the " inner light " 
alike as prohibiting the use of judicial oaths or any 
appeal to arms or other employment of force. 

With these principles and peculiarities, and mas- 
tered by a profound consciousness of a divine call. 
Fox began his mission as a preacher in 1647. Fanat- 
ical, extravagant in language, denunciatory, he 
aroused immense opposition and was met with every 
insult. Ridicule was heaped upon him. He was 
beaten, stoned, and set in the stocks. In 1650 and 
165 1 he spent a year as a prisoner in Derby jail — an 
experience to be followed by at least seven other 
imprisonments in various parts of England, the last 
of which was not ended till 1678. But while Fox 
encountered hostility from most, his transparent 
spiritual sincerity, his earnestness, his courage, 

I Fox did not reject legal titles, such as "king," "protector," 
"justice, " etc. 



GEORGE FOX 295 

and the impression that he conveyed of being 
the bearer of a message not his own, won many 
converts, mostly, indeed, from the middle and lower 
classes, but some of wealth and station. Men like 
Cromwell, who were far from sympathizing with his 
peculiar views, respected his sincerity and acknowl- 
edged his power. Soon others proclaimed his doc- 
trines. By 1654 no less than sixty missionaries of 
the Quaker faith were traveling throughout England. 
In 1656 they crossed the Atlantic to Massachusetts, 
and, before 1660, had borne their testimony in Scot- 
land, Ireland, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, 
Turkey, Palestine, and the West India islands — in 
many of these lands without any permanent effect. 
As with Fox, so with his followers, persecution was a 
frequent experience. At the restoration of the 
Stuart monarchy, in 1660, no less than 3,170 Quakers 
were in EngHsh jails, and by 1661 four had been 
hanged in Massachusetts. Undoubtedly these early 
Quakers did much by fanatical attacks and extrava- 
gant conduct to excite hostility; but as the move- 
ment grew in age its extremer manifestations rapidly 
disappeared, to be followed by the sobriety and good 
order that soon became characteristic of the society. 
When freed from prison and till disabled by the 
infirmities of age. Fox manifested a restless activity. 
He preached throughout the length and breadth of 
England. Between 167 1 and 1673 he visited Barba- 
does and Jamaica, going thence by way of Maryland, 



296 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

Delaware, New Jersey, and Long Island, to Rhode 
Island, and, on his return, as far south as North 
Carolina, everywhere advancing the cause which he 
had at heart. This long journey through what 
were slave-holding lands strengthened in him the 
sense already expressed in 1656 of the evil of hu- 
man bondage and its essential unrighteousness — a 
conviction which the Friends were to entertain more 
deeply and to make more effective than any other 
Christian body. With less success he visited Hol- 
land in 1677 and 1684, the journey on the former 
occasion being extended to Germany. 

On October 27, 1669, Fox married one of his early 
disciples, who had become a widow, Margaret Fell, 
possessed of property and position, whose home, 
Swarthmore Hall, had long been a refuge for the 
Quakers. A woman of high character and like 
spirit, she aided and supplemented his work, and 
survived him by more than a decade. The greatest 
trophy of the early activities of the Quakers was un- 
doubtedly William Penn. Born in 1644, the son of 
Admiral Sir William Penn, he enjoyed the best cul- 
ture and education that England afforded. Always 
of a mystically religious frame of mind, he came 
under Quaker influences, and in 1667 threw in his 
lot wholly with the society, which he defended in 
vigorous pamphlets, and in common with the hum- 
bler members of which he suffered repeated im- 
prisonment. Nevertheless, his political influence 



GEORGE FOX 297 

was always large. By that influence he was able to 
bring to a realization a wish that Fox had entertained 
since 1660, that Quakers should possess some terri- 
tory in which they might enjoy across the Atlantic 
a freedom not theirs in England. 

After a rather unsatisfying connection with the 
affairs of New Jersey, beginning in 1674, Penn se- 
cured from Charles II in compensation for claims 
on the English treasury which he had inherited from 
his father, the charter of Pennsylvania, under date 
of March 4, 1681. The result was the immediate 
settlement, under Penn's leadership, of what has 
become one of the greatest of American common- 
wealths. Its government, as established by Penn, 
was of large liberality. Religious freedom in high 
degree was allowed. Fairness marked its relations 
with the Indians. Industry and thrift were pro- 
moted. The Quaker "experiment" must rank 
among the most successful of American colonial 
enterprises, though its course was not without great 
trials and much political friction, for Penn's colony 
attracted many who were not Quakers, notably from 
Germany as well as from the homeland. 

It may be remarked that throughout the eighteenth 
century the Quaker body was the communion of 
Christians which was perhaps the most widely dis- 
tributed geographically of any in British America. 
Numbering perhaps 50,000 by 1760, it was never as 
large as several other religious communions, but it 



298 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

was broadly scattered throughout the colonies that 
became the United States. 

Fox's last years were full of Christian confidence 
and peace. He saw his society relieved of most of 
its civil disabilities by the Toleration Act of 1689. 
It was never in more flourishing state than when he 
died, on January 13, 1691, in London. His end was 
triumphant. To those who stood by his bedside he 
declared, using the technical language of the piety of 
his day, "All is well; the Seed of God reigns over all 
and over death itself."^ His fame must ever be that 
of one of the most forceful religious leaders that 
Anglo-Saxon Christendom has produced. From 
Fox's death, the Society which he had founded ceased 
to advance with any rapidity, and soon came sensibly 
to decline in adherents. But its contributions to 
human freedom, abolition of slavery, prison reform, 
and the betterment of social and industrial condi- 
tions have been out of all proportion to the relative 
scantiness of its numbers. 

In the judgment of most branches of the Christian 
church. Fox was far too radical in his rejection of 
what he deemed the harmful externals of worship 
and organization. To the thought of most Chris- 
tians, the church needs an established and educated 
ministry, an orderly and regular service, and the 
visible sacraments. But to recognize that he rejected 
much that long Christian experience has approved 

I Jones, op. cit., II, 578. 



GEORGE FOX 299 

is not to deny the purity of his intentions, or the 
value of much of his work. He hated all shams and 
pretenses. He was the enemy of all formalism 
in worship, however formal his followers have 
shown themselves in dress, speech, and behavior. 
He asserted that the life must be the expression of 
the faith. He declared that all men are capable of 
accepting the gospel offer. He taught the essential 
spiritual equality of all believers. But his greatest 
contribution was his conception of the "inner light." 
In an age which shut up all divine revelation 
in the pages of a Book, he maintained that the 
Holy Spirit speaks directly and revealingly now to 
the believer; not merely operates on the believer's 
heart to produce faith as all Protestantism held, but 
guides, illuminates, and directs. That truth alone, 
if Fox had made no other contribution to religious 
thought, is enough to give him place among those to 
whom Christian life owes much. 

QUESTIONS 

1. How did the English Reformation differ from that on 
the Continent? What degree of Protestantism was repre- 
sented by Henry VHI ? 

2. What parties were dominant under Edward VI and 
Mary ? Were either representative of England as a whole ? 

3. What was the religious policy of Elizabeth ? In what 
respects was it successful? Why was it disliked by the 
Puritans ? What was her attitude toward them ? Why ? 

4. What was the religious condition of England under 



300 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

James I and Charles I? Why the civil wars? What was 
the attitude of Puritanism toward a state church? Its 
theological convictions ? 

5. Describe the early life of George Fox. His conver- 
sion? His sense of divine revelations? His criticisms of 
existing religion ? 

6. Why did Fox criticize the ministers? Why was not 
an education sufficient ? 

7. What was Fox's doctrine of the "inner light" ? 

8. Describe other peculiarities of Fox's religious belief. 

9 What were Fox's qualities as a preacher? How was 
he treated ? His success ? 

10. What was the early growth of the Quakers? Their 
missionary zeal? Fox's journeys to America, Holland, and 
Germany ? 

11. The value of William Penn to the Quaker cause? 
Pennsylvania, its foundation and characteristics ? 

12. Fox's marriage, last days, and death? 

13. The limitations and the services of his movement? 
Its permanent value ? 

ADDITIONAL READING 

Rufus M. Jones, George Fox: An Autobiography (Philadel- 
phia, 1903). 

Thomas Hodgkin, George Fox (London, 1896). 

A. C. Thomas and R. H. Thomas, The History of the Society 
of Friends in America, "American Church History" 
Series (New York, 1894), Vol. XII, 163-308. 



NICOLAUS LUDWIG VON ZINZENDORF 



XVII 
NICOLAUS LUDWIG VON ZINZENDORF 

In all Protestant lands the fresh, creative epoch of 
the Reformation was followed by a new formalism. 
The lesser men, who succeeded the great reformers, 
looked upon their work as essentially complete. The 
Bible was regarded as the source of truth; but its 
teachings were viewed as fully and finally garnered 
into the theological systems of the Reformation age. 
A new scholasticism arose, as dry as that of the Mid- 
dle Ages. This was particularly the case in Ger- 
many, where it has been well said that for the author- 
ity of the mediaeval church was substituted the 
authority of the new theologians. Great weight was 
laid on "pure doctrine." Much was made of the 
church as an institution, of the corporate and official 
aspects of Christianity, and of the sacraments as of 
themselves placing their serious-minded receivers in 
the sure ranks of Christian discipleship. The con- 
scious personal relation to Christ sank into the back- 
ground, and for it was largely substituted a concep- 
tion of the Christian life which saw as its essential 
features orthodoxy of doctrine, faithful attendance 
on public worship, and employment of the sacra- 
ments which the church offered. This condition has 
sometimes, though not quite justly, been called " dead 
orthodoxy." 

303 



304 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

The great reaction from this formal conception ot 
the Christian life was that known in Germany as 
"Pietism," and it had for its leader Philipp Jakob 
Spener. Born in 1635, at Rappoltsweiler in Alsace, 
he grew up under strong religious impressions, which 
were intensified by acquaintance with the writings 
of the German ascetic-mystic, Johann Arndt, and 
translations of the works of English Puritans.^ 
Graduation at the University of Strassburg was fol- 
lowed by sojourns in Basel and Geneva and by his 
settlement, in 1666, as chief pastor in the important 
Lutheran city of Frankfort. Convinced that the 
religious life of the city was at a low ebb, Spener, in 
1670, gathered a little company of like-minded men 
and women in his house twice weekly for pious read- 
ing and religious conversation. To these meetings 
the name Collegia pietatis was soon given. Five 
years later, Spener published his Pia desideria, in 
which he recommended the establishment of similar 
collegia, mutual watch, a strenuous, rather ascetic. 
Christian life, better care of the morals and Christian 
character of theological students, and simpler and 
more spiritual preaching. Spener's thought was 
that a kernel of experiential Christians should be 
gathered in each congregation which should cultivate 

I The writer owes much to the admirable articles in Hauck's 
Realencyklopddie by Griinberg on "Spener," XVIII, 609-22; 
by Forster-Halle on "Francke," VI, 150-58; by Mirbt on "Piet- 
ism," XV, 774-815; and by Gottschick on "Adiaphora," I, 
174-76. 



NICOLAUS LUDWIG VON ZINZENDORF J ^ 3Q5 

a stricter and warmer Christian life with the hope of 
ultimately leavening the whole. He felt that only 
those who had been "born again" by a conscious 
Christian experience — "conversion" — were fitted for 
this work or should have a place in the ministry. 

Spener's views won friends and aroused opposition, 
so that, in 1686, he accepted a call to become preacher 
at the Saxon court in Dresden. Here his troubles 
were but increased. The theological faculties of the 
universities of Leipzig and Wittenberg attacked him 
as unorthodox and as of Puritan strictness in his con- 
ception of the Christian life. Though a Lutheran 
in his own belief, the comparative indifiference with 
which he regarded what seemed to him minor theo- 
logical divergences so long as "the heart" is right, 
were regarded by orthodox Lutherans as treason to 
^'pure doctrine." Many supported him, however, 
and soon German Protestantism was divided into 
two camps. Plain-spoken pastoral admonitions to 
the Saxon Elector made his further stay at Dresden 
uncomfortable, and he was glad to accept a call to 
Berlin in 1691, where he found greater peace and 
exercised a large influence till his death in 1705. 

Spener's most eminent disciple was August Her- 
mann Francke. Born in Liibeck in 1663, and hav- 
ing lost his father when but seven years old, thoughts 
of Christian service in the ministry were awakened in 
him by an elder sister, and, after a course of study in 
Kiel and Leipzig, he became, in 1685, an instructor 



3o6 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

in the university of the city last named. Here he 
labored to advance the study of the Bible. In 1687, 
in further preparation for the ministry, he went to 
Luneburg, and there, as he was writing a sermon on 
John 20:31, an experience came to him which he 
ever after regarded as his "conversion." It seemed 
to him that he had passed from death to spiritual life. 
A few months later he made a long visit to Spener in 
Dresden, and began a personal intimacy that was to 
continue till the latter's death. On the resumption 
of his teaching in Leipzig, in 1689, he began lecturing 
with a great following on the Scriptures and was an 
energetic leader in a warmer spiritual life among the 
students. Some of the latter, however, in their new- 
found enthusiasm, began to despise their ordinary 
studies as worldly and unnecessary; the hostility of 
Francke's colleagues in the faculty was aroused, and, 
in 1690, he accepted a pastorate in Erfurt. Opposi- 
tion followed him thither, and the next year he had 
to leave this new post. Through Spener' s influence 
he obtained a pastorate, however, in Glaucha, near 
Halle, and the promise of a professorship in the new 
university which was opened in 1694, at the place 
last named, under Prussian auspices. Thanks to 
Francke and Spener, the University of Halle became 
the home of Pietism, and Francke continued its 
most influential professor till his death in 1727. 
Francke was a man of many-sided activities as a 
pastor, a teacher, and a reformer. He built up a 



NICOLAUS LUDWIG VON ZINZENDORF 307 

great preparatory school, the Paedagogiuniy and a 
most useful orphan asylum in Halle — a remarkable 
foundation, established by a multitude of gifts re- 
ceived, so Francke believed, in answer to prayer — 
and one doing honored work to the present day. 
With it was soon associated the institution for printing 
and distributing the Bible, founded by Francke's 
friend, Baron von Canstein in 17 10, and still carrying 
forward its activities. When King Frederick IV, of 
Denmark, wished to establish one of the earliest of 
Protestant missions in India in 1705, it was among 
Francke's disciples in Halle that he found his first 
missionaries, and in Francke himself that he had his 
most earnest supporter. 

The pietistic conception of religion, as represented 
by Francke and his disciples, was thus earnest, con- 
secrated, self-denying, benevolent, and marked by 
missionary zeal. It was strenuous in its attitude 
toward amusements, dress, and luxury. Dancing, 
the theater, and cards, which the older Lutherans 
largely looked upon as ''indifferent matters" regard- 
ing which a Christian could do as he pleased, were 
viewed by the Pietists as hindrances to the Christian 
life and to be forbidden. So far was this tendency 
carried that the children in the orphan house in Halle 
were not allowed to play. Entrance on the Christian 
life was looked upon as normally by a conscious 
"conversion." The faults of the Pietists were those 
which often beset strenuous and earnest reformers. 



3o8 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

Convinced of the need of a warmer religious life, 
they were too much disposed to minimize the value 
of the church, its services and ordinances, and the 
real Christianity of those who did not think as they 
did; but that they did a great and a needed work in 
Germany there can be no question. 

That work in one of its most peculiar and per- 
manent forms is to be seen in the achievements of 
Nicolaus Ludwig, Count of Zinzendorf, the reor- 
ganizer of the Moravians. Grandson of a nobleman 
who had left Austria for his religious convictions, 
and son of a trusted servant of the Elector of Saxony, 
Zinzendorf was born in Dresden on May 26, 1700. 
Spener was his godfather at his baptism. His father 
died when the boy was but six months old, his 
mother married a second time, and his training came 
into the hands of his grandmother, the earnest, piet- 
istic Baroness of Gersdorf — a correspondent of 
Spener and Francke. From his earliest childhood 
Zinzendorf manifested the glowing personal love for 
Christ — not merely as his Lord but as the truest and 
nearest of friends, which was to be the prime trait of 
his reHgious experience to the end of his life. 

When ten years old, the boy was sent to Francke's 
Paedagogium in Halle, where his pietistic tendencies 
were intensified and he soon became a leader among 
his youthful companions. He organized little prayer 
meetings, he became interested in missions, and, 
when fifteen, established among his schoolmates an 



NICOLAUS LUDWIG VON ZINZENDORF 309 

"Order of the Grain of Mustard Seed^'^ for the pro- 
motion of the Kingdom of God. Zinzendorf's 
guardian, an uncle, thinking this zeal unhealthful, 
sent him, in 17 16, to the orthodox Lutheran Uni- 
versity of Wittenberg, where he studied law for the 
next three years. They were a time of growth. His 
pietistic principles remained firm in essentials; but 
they were broadened and shorn of many extrava- 
gances. Then followed two years of travel, includ- 
ing Holland and France in his route. Amid the 
corruptions of the French court, then notorious for 
its profligacy, he maintained his convictions, and he 
returned to Dresden, in 1721, to enter the service of 
the Saxon Elector, a man of ripened experience and 
unshaken religious character. 

Political life was begun, however, only to please his 
relatives, and Zinzendorf would have much pre- 
ferred the ministry. Most of his life at Dresden was 
devoted to religious conversation. A meeting for 
Christian edification was held every Sunday afternoon 
in his own house. The opportunity soon came in an 
unexpected way for a much larger service that was to 
prove his life-work. The remains of the old Hussite 
movement, the United Brethren {Unitas Fratriim)^^ 
which had flourished exceedingly in Bohemia and 
Moravia at the time of the Reformation, had been 
nearly crushed during the Thirty Years' War, and 
were subject to severe persecution. A revival was in 

I Matt. 13:31. 2 See ante, p. 212. 



310 GR^AT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

progress under a Moravian carpenter, Christian 
David, and the "Brethren" were casting about for 
some place of refuge in Protestant lands. This they 
found on Zinzendorf's estates, and in 1722 David 
began the establishment of the town of Herrnhut. 
With them Zinzendorf entered into close association, 
and soon religious-minded people of all shades of 
theologic opinion and of most various origins were 
flocking to this new Christian community. The 
thought was that here a town could be erected, in- 
habited only by Christians, separate from the 
"world," a real "communion of saints." It was a 
free and social monasticism, without celibacy, but, 
like monasticism, seeking to Hve the Christian life 
under peculiarly favorable conditions and apart from 
the grosser temptations. 

A community of such varied origin could not find 
its bond in strict doctrinal unity. Zinzendorf sought it 
in love, and in careful regulation of the life of its mem- 
bers under a constitution of peculiar strenuousness. 
He wished to remain in as close connection as possible 
with the Lutheran communion of his birth, but he 
found it necessary to preserve the old Moravian 
forms, and, in 1727, the Herrnhut company was 
organized with bishop, priests, and deacons. In 
spite of these names, the church organization really 
depended on the congregation, and in its government 
laymen had a large share. The affairs of the com- 
munity were administered by a common board; the 



I 



NICOLAUS LUDWIG VON ZINZENDORF 311 

widows, maids, and young men were lodged and 
supervised in separate houses, and with distinctive 
clothing; an elaborate and in many respects beauti- 
ful liturgy soon voiced public worship. From 1727 
Zinzendorf was the guiding spirit of the Herrnhut 
community, and, ten years later, he received formal 
ordination as bishop in the reorganized Moravian 
church, or "United Brethren" as the body preferred 
to style itself, using its historic designation. 

Zinzendorf s impulses had always been strongly 
missionary, and he saw in all who were moved by 
love to Christ the children of God. He even at- 
tempted to influence the Roman and Greek churches. 
His chief effort within the realm of Protestantism 
was, however, to found separated "societies," more 
or less resembling that at Herrnhut, made up of those 
whom he believed to be real Christians, as judged by 
his pietistic tests. These he did not deem a separate 
church, but associations for a warmer Christian life 
within the various churches. His communion he 
ever regarded as the true people of God, separated 
from the world, and largely shielded from its tempta- 
tions. Soon branch "societies" were formed in 
various parts of Germany, in Holland, in England, 
and in Pennsylvania. The noblest work of Mora- 
vianism, and that most expressive of Zinzendorf's 
own character, was that of foreign missions. On 
a visit to the Danish capital, Copenhagen, to be pres- 
ent at the coronation of King Christian VI, in 1731, 



312 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

Zinzendorf met a negro from the Danish West India 
Islands, and was impressed with the needs of the 
race there held in slavery. As a result, the first of 
the noble army of Moravian missionaries, Leonhard 
Dober and David Nitschmann, set forth from Herrn- 
hut on their way to St. Thomas, in 1732. The 
establishment of other missions speedily followed. 
In 1733 Greenland was entered; in 1734, Lapland; 
in 1735 efforts were begun among the American 
Indians in Georgia; in 1737 the African Guinea 
Coast was reached and work was begun among the 
Hottentots of South Africa, also; in 1738 South 
American Guiana was invaded, and labors in Cey- 
lon and Algeria were commenced two years later. 
The year 1771 saw the estabHshment, after many 
failures, of a successful mission in Labrador. These 
are but part of the regions to which the gospel was 
carried by indefatigable Moravian zeal; and a glance 
at their names shows a prime characteristic of these 
missions. They are prevailingly the hard and neg- 
lected fields of the earth. In many of them the 
Moravians have been conspicuously successful, carry- 
ing on their work at marvelously small cost, with 
unwearied patience and heroic consecration. First 
of all Protestant bodies the Moravian communion 
awoke, as a whole, to the importance of missions; 
and, in proportion to its numbers, its missionary 
activity to this day far exceeds that of any other 
branch of the Christian church. Certainly, this one 



NICOLAUS LUDWIG VON ZINZENDORF 313 

result of Zinzendorf's work, had he done nothing 
else, would shed an abiding luster on his name. 

From his first connection with the Moravians, 
Zinzendorf and the communion of which he was the 
head had to endure bitter criticism, not only from 
orthodox Lutherans but even from the older Pietists. 
Much of this was not without considerable founda- 
tion. Zinzendorf's basal principle of love found at 
first too often, even in him, a sentimental expression. 
The Moravian hymns were objectionable to many 
earnest Christians by reason of their presentation 
under very earthly images of the relation of the be- 
liever to his Lord. The communion, in 1741, 
formally chose Christ as its chief elder, and believed 
his will to be made known by casting lots. It re- 
garded itself as embracing in far too exclusive a sense 
"the true Children of God." It strove to regulate 
in a really obnoxious way the most private and 
sacred relations of family life. As time went on, 
however, these excrescences were gradually pruned 
away. The experiences of the Moravians were, in 
this regard, much the same as those of the early 
Quakers. The first extravagances gave place to 
sobriety and order. 

Zinzendorf himself had to suffer from this opposi- 
tion more than mere unpopularity. The Saxon 
government, probably moved by the complaints of 
the Austrian authorities that he gave a shelter to 
persecuted Austrian subjects, banished him in 1736. 



314 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

This sentence but enlarged the sphere of Zinzendorf 's 
activities. He labored in various parts of Germany, 
Holland, Switzerland, England, the West India 
islands, and North America. From December, 
1741, to January, 1743, he made his home in Penn- 
sylvania. Here he strove to unite the reHgious forces 
of the German settlers of the commonwealth in a 
spirit of broad Christian charity. He served as 
pastor of the Lutheran congregation in Philadelphia. 
He sowed the seeds of Moravian societies in "Beth- 
lehem, Nazareth, Philadelphia, Hebron, Heidelberg, 
Lancaster, and York in Pennsylvania, and in New 
York City and on Staten Island.'" He established 
a new Herrnhut, at Bethlehem, where American 
Moravianism still has one of its chief homes. He 
even attempted to do something, by personal effort, 
toward spreading the gospel among the Indians of 
the great Iroquois confederacy, and provided for 
prosecution of this enterprise in which David Zeis- 
berger was soon to win so fair a name. Much of 
Zinzendorf's time, during his long exile, was spent in 
rapid journeyings to superintend and promote the 
cause he had at heart; and nowhere was his con- 
spicuous talent as an organizer more clearly exhibited 
than in the results of this restless activity. 

A change of sentiment favorable to Zinzendorf was 
effected in the Saxon government itself. In 1747 

I J. T. Hamilton, A History of the Unitas Fratrum, "Ameri- 
can Church History" Series (New York, 1895), VIII, 451. 



NICOLAUS LUDWIG VON ZINZENDORF 315 

the sentence of banishment was revoked, and, two 
years later, primarily to secure greater political 
security, the Moravian body acknowledged the 
Augsburg Confession, the basal creed of the Lutheran 
churches, as the expression of its faith.' This act 
wrought no change in its purpose, aims, or organiza- 
tion. Zinzendorf was now practically freed from all 
hindrances. He continued his active supervision 
and his wide-extended travels almost till his death, 
which occurred in Herrnhut, in the confidence of the 
Christian faith, on May 9, 1760. Fortunate in his 
leadership, the Moravian body was equally happy in 
his successor, August Gottlieb Spangenberg (1704- 
1792), in no sense a creative genius Hke Zinzendorf, 
but a man of conservatism, strong common-sense, 
and great administrative abilities, who knew how to 
continue and improve the work of his great prede- 
cessor, and to repress its more extravagant features 
without abating the effectiveness of its zeal. 

Zinzendorf's character had its lights and its 
shadows. Of unbounded enthusiasm, great mission- 
ary zeal, and sincerity of consecration, he was yet 
inclined to what always seems to the Anglo-Saxon 
temperament a sentimental type of religion, and he 
would use a scriptural symbol or figurative expres- 
sion as the basis of an extensive flight of spiritual 

» The same year the Moravians in England were favored with 
exemptions (from oaths, jury duty, and certain military services) 
by act of Parliament, which also declared that their bishops were 
in apostolical succession. 



3i6 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

imagination. But in him positive services to the 
Kingdom of God far outweighed any shortcomings 
or defects. He was an organizer of marvelous talent. 
He devoted position, wealth, above all himself, to his 
cause, which was that of his Master. He voiced his 
piety in hymns, some of which, like "Jesus still lead 
on, till our rest be won," have been beloved of the 
church universal. Few men have shown such per- 
sonal devotion to Christ, and he gave the true ground- 
note of his character in his declaration to his Herrnhut 
congregation; "I have only one passion. It is He, 
none but He." 

QUESTIONS 

1. Did the period succeeding the Reformation maintain the 
spiritual zeal of that movement? Its characteristics? 

2. What was "Pietism" ? Outline the life of Spener. 

3. How did Spener attempt to advance vital religion? 
His collegia ? The type of Christianity which he represented ? 

4. What was Francke's early religious history? His 
"conversion"? How did he become a professor in Halle? 
What importance did Halle have for Pietism? 

5. What were Francke's institutions in Halle? Their 
work? 

6. What was the attitude of Pietism toward amusements ? 
What were the merits of Pietism ? 

7. Describe Zinzendorf's life. Its religious traits? His 
education? The "Order of the Grain of Mustard Seed" ? 

8. Who were the Moravians ? What did they call them- 
selves ? From what ancient movement were they descended ? 
Who was Christian David ? 

9. How did Zinzendorf come in contact with the Mora- 



NICOLAUS LUDWIG VON ZINZENDORF 317 

vians? Their reorganization? Herrnhut? What was its 
aim and how was it organized ? 

10. How did Moravian missions begin? Some lands in 
which they labored? The characteristics of Moravian 
missions? The missionary zeal of the Moravians? 

11. What were some of the criticisms which Zinzendorf 
and the Moravian movement had to endure ? Why ? 

12. What office did Zinzendorf hold in the Moravian 
church ? His abilities as an organizer ? His banishment, its 
effects ? His work in America ? Recall to Saxony ? 

13. Zinzendorf's later life and death? His character? 

ADDITIONAL READING 

J. T. Hamilton, The Moravian Church in the United States, 
"American Church History" Series (New York, 1895), 
vm, 425-508. 

A. C. Thompson, Moravian Missions (New York), 1895. 



JOHN WESLEY 



XVIII 
JOHN WESLEY 

It is a fact of frequent observation that questions 
which profoundly arouse the feelings of one age lose 
their vital interest for its successor. Seemingly of 
overwhelming importance to one or two generations, 
they come to be viewed with apathy. Such was the 
fate of the great religious conflict which convulsed 
England in the seventeenth century. Long before 
the Toleration Act of 1689 gave a larger, though 
imperfect, freedom to Dissenters from the national 
church, the old Puritan fire had burned low. There 
was little in the England of 1700 to lead one to imagine 
that it had been the intensely aroused land of 1650. 
The great struggle had brought, indeed, permanent 
enlargements of religious and political freedom. The 
uniformity which Archbishop Laud had desired was 
as dead an issue as were the ideals of the Stuart 
monarchy which he had served. The religious con- 
dition of the land was, however, one of relative 
lethargy. Neither among Dissenters nor in the 
Church of England was a vigorous and out-reaching 
religious life extensively apparent. 

Among the classes of the population distinguished 
by station or intelligence, the older doctrinal positions 
were widely regarded as outgrown. The fashion- 

331 



322 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

able world had long since scorned everything that 
savored of Puritanism. Among thinking men the 
new philosophy just introduced by John Locke, and 
the new discoveries of science, of which Sir Isaac 
Newton's law of gravitation was but the most bril- 
liant, were shaking the older theologies, though the 
leaders mentioned were themselves Christian men. 
The new conception of the universe as a realm of 
law thus introduced was demanding adjustment. 
The result in not a few minds was Deism. That 
system of thought recognized the world as the work 
of an all-wise creator, who, however, does not inter- 
fere in its ongoing either by revelation or by provi- 
dence. With many, religion was looked upon as an 
essentially baseless superstition, which learned men 
could afford to repudiate privately, but which ought 
to be maintained because of its police value over the 
ignorant. 

The lower classes, though almost absolutely un- 
affected by the attitude of mind just noted among 
their superiors in station, were in a condition of al- 
most unbelievable ignorance, coarseness, and neglect. 
The administration of law, though ferocious in its 
severity, was unable to give adequate public security. 
The jails were sinks of physical and moral rottenness. 
Drunkenness was frightfully prevalent. The condi- 
tion of the common people in city and country alike 
was one of brutality. 

There were, indeed, men of character, ability, and 



JOHN WESLEY 323 

spiritual insight among the ministry of the Establish- 
ment and in the dissenting churches. Never perhaps 
in English history has there been a more brilliant 
group of intellectual defenders of historic and rational 
Christianity than in the years that immediately 
preceded Wesley's activity. The names of Arch- 
deacon Daniel Waterland, Bishop George Berkeley, 
and Bishop Joseph Butler, to mention no others, must 
always shine in the story of the earlier decades of the 
eighteenth century. Nor was earnest piety without 
its representatives. From the High-churchman, Wil- 
liam Law, to the Congregational hymn-writer, Isaac 
Watts, no section of rehgious England was without 
men of warm-hearted religious feeling. But the pre- 
vailing type of preaching was that of the passionless 
essay on moral duties, and the heated controversies 
of the seventeenth century had led to a widespread 
reaction which dreaded anything of "enthusiasm," 
or, as we should say, fanaticism, in the pulpit 
or in conduct. Preaching was intellectual and un- 
stimulating. Appeals to the fundamental religious 
feelings were exceedingly rare, and were regarded as 
scarcely fitting. 

It was high time that a new and effective presenta- 
tion of the gospel should be made, that the neglected 
emotional nature of men should be roused to religious 
activity, and the masses outside the churches should 
be sought. That England was regenerated spiritu- 
ally and awakened as never before, was, humanly 



324 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

speaking, the work of two men of transcendent 
abilities, John Wesley, the organizer of Methodism, 
and George Whitefield, the greatest preacher of the 
eighteenth century. 

John Wesley was born in Epworth, Lincolnshire, 
where his father. Rev. Samuel Wesley, was rector, 
on June 17, 1703.^ His father was a hard-working, 
earnest head of a rather remote country parish. His 
mother, Susannah (Annesley), was a woman of 
unusual talents, intellectual powers, and spiritual 
gifts, from whom the son drew much of what he after- 
ward became. In a household of nineteen children, 
even though only ten survived the perils of infancy, 
the financial problem was always a pressing one; 
but the brothers and sisters grew up under their 
mother's instruction, with more than usual cultiva- 
tion of manner as well as of mind, and in spite of a 
plainness of speech one toward another which almost 
savored of bluntness, with great mutual affection. 
One event of John's boyhood made an indelible 
impression on his mind. He was rescued, at the 
last moment, from the fire that destroyed the rec- 
tory, and it seemed to him that he was literally "a 
brand plucked from the burning." A sense of the 
immediacy of divine providence was characteristic 
of the boy from his earliest childhood. 

When a little more than ten, Wesley entered the 

I " Old style. " In the reformed dating now in use the day 
would be June 28. 



JOHN WESLEY 325 

famous Charterhouse School in London, and thence 
passed, at seventeen, to the University of Oxford. 
In both he was distinguished for scholarship, but the 
warm piety of his early home life sank to a low level. 
Still, it was not extinguished; and in September, 
1725, he was ordained to the ministry of the Church 
of England. He now conscientiously read good 
books, and was specially impressed by William Law's 
Serious Call,^ which came into his hands soon after 
he was chosen a fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford. 
As Wesley himself said, it convinced him " more than 
ever of the impossibility of being half a Christian, 
and [he] determined to be all devoted to God." 
Law's writings may be called the seed from which 
early Methodism sprang. 

Wesley now entered on the active ministry. From 
August, 1727, to November, 1729, he served as his 
father's curate in the parish of his boyhood. In the 
month last mentioned he returned to Oxford to 
assume the duties of his fellowship. Meanwhile, in 
his absence from Oxford, important events had taken 
place there. Charles Wesley, his younger brother, 
who was to be the poet of Methodism, then a student 
in Oxford, had gathered a few Hke-minded associates 
into a little club, for the cultivation of the Christian 
life. They were "High-churchmen" in their sym- 

I A Serious Call to a Holy Life, published in 1728. Dr. 
Samuel Johnson described it as "the finest piece of hortatory 
theology in any language. " 



326 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

pathies, and they ordered their lives by strict rule, 
partaking of the sacraments, visiting prisoners, fast- 
ing, and seeking mutual edification. This earnest- 
ness and regularity aroused the derision of the 
student body, and soon led to the nickname, "Meth- 
odists."^ Of this fellowship John Wesley became 
the leader on his return to Oxford in 1729. George 
Whitefield joined the little company in 1735. 

Though Oxford was thus the cradle of Methodism, 
none of its leaders was destined to make that seat 
of learning his home. In 1735, John and Charles 
Wesley sailed for Georgia, then a colony planned 
largely on a philanthropic basis by James Edward 
Oglethorpe. Here John Wesley remained till late 
in 1737. It was not a pleasant experience. Wesley 
was a High-churchman. His views were strict and 
censorious; and his refusal to administer the com- 
munion to Miss Sophy Hopkey, after she had become 
Mrs. Williamson, was unfortunate in view of the 
courtship that had existed between them before that 
lady's marriage. Wesley, always a keen judge of 
men, was not marked by skill in insight into feminine 
character. His Georgia mission was practically a 
failure. For his own spiritual development it was, 
however, of the highest importance. On the voyage 
out and in Georgia he was thrown much into the 
company of Moravians, and was convinced that they 

^ The name was not newly invented. See, on its earlier use, 
Tyerman, Life and Times of the Rev. John Wesley, I, 67. 



JOHN WESLEY 327 

had a depth of religious experience which he had not 
yet acquired. Returned to London, he imme- 
diately sought out the Moravians, and was greatly 
influenced by one of their leaders in that city, Peter 
Bohler. He attended the Moravian meetings, and 
in one of them, on May 24, 1738, had the remarkable 
experience which he ever after viewed as his "con- 
version." While Luther's preface to his commen- 
tary on the Epistle to the Romans was being read, 
Wesley records: "I felt my heart strangely warmed. 
I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; 
and an assurance was given me that he had taken 
away my sins, even mine."' A similar experience 
had come to Charles Wesley three days before, and 
to Whitefield a little earlier. 

Wesley was a man of prompt action. He would 
know more of the Moravians, and early in June he 
started for Germany to meet Zinzendorf and visit 
Herrnhut. He was greatly impressed with the eager 
and emotional piety that he witnessed. His debt 
to Moravian influences was permanent. But Wes- 
ley's good sense kept him from sympathy with the 
more extravagant features of early Moravianism, 
and, in particular, from the adoption of the Moravian 
plan of separate towns. Christians should not with- 
draw from the world, but work in it, where its temp- 
tations were the strongest and the powers of evil most 
firmly intrenched. 

I John Wesley's Journal, abridged edition (Cincinnati, 1903), 



328 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

Wesley's return from Germany was followed by 
endeavors to preach the gospel as he now understood 
it, in which Whitefield fully shared. The churches, 
however, were generally, though not always, closed 
to them as fanatics by the rectors in charge; and, 
therefore, in February, 1739, Whitefield began 
preaching in the fields. Such an innovation dis- 
tressed Wesley's High-churchmanship ; but -he felt 
the gospel must be preached, and, in April following, 
he adopted the same method of reaching the people. 
Both were great preachers, but in effective popular 
address Whitefield was undoubtedly the greater. 
Such preaching England had not heard for years. 
Intense, emotional, calling for immediate, conscious 
conversion, it pressed the message on the attention 
of men for whom the ordinary discourses of the time 
had little attraction. It appealed to the heart. It 
depicted the danger of neglect of Christ and the 
terrors of the hereafter in lurid vividness; but it 
urged none the less clearly the forgiving grace of God, 
and the possibilities of full consecration to his service. 
Its emotional effectiveness was extreme. In the 
earlier years both of Whitefield's and of Wesley's 
preaching, faintings, hysterics, and outcries of dis- 
tress were not uncommon accompaniments of the 
sermons; but the number profoundly and perma- 
nently awakened to the Christian hope was very great. 
The preachers encountered ridicule, calumny, and 
mob violence of all kinds; but they made themselves 



JOHN WESLEY 329 

heard, and it was a ministry largely to the unchurched 
and neglected that soon won abundant fruitage. 

This preaching was notably successful in Bristol 
and its vicinity, and there, in 1739, Wesley began the 
erection of the first Methodist place of worship — a 
task involving great and unanticipated financial re- 
sponsibilities. The titles of these "chapels," as they 
were called, since the name "church" was popu- 
larly used for the edifices of the EngHsh Establish- 
ment, were long generally vested in Wesley himself. 
The same year, 1739, the "Foundry" was made the 
center of Methodist meetings in London. The 
chapels soon became very numerous; and a device 
originally adopted in 1742, as a means of raising the 
heavy debt on that in Bristol, not only proved finan- 
cially effective, but was soon made one of the chief 
spiritual agencies of Methodism. The congregation 
was composed chiefly of the poor. It was divided 
into groups of twelve, each member of which was 
pledged to give a penny a week to a collector. Wes- 
ley's keen organizing genius saw at once that the 
collector might wisely become the spiritual super- 
visor of his group, and that these bands of associates 
might aid each other's religious life by testimony as 
to their experiences and temptations. The result 
was the " class- meeting, " which was at once ex- 
tended to all Methodism, and has proved one of its 
most useful features.^ 

I Journal, op. cit., pp. 123, 124; Tyerman, I, 377-80. 



330 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

Wesley had at first built his work largely on the 
basis of "religious societies/' which had existed for 
at least half a century before his active labors began 
as voluntary associations for the cultivation of the 
religious life. These had afforded a ready door for 
Moravianism; and the society in London with which 
Wesley was chiefly associated was essentially a Mora- 
vian body. But Wesley came to feel justly that 
English Moravianism was marked by extravagances, 
while the London Moravians in turn viewed him 
as not acceptable to themselves. The result was 
that, on July 23, 1740, the "United Society" met 
in London as a distinctly Methodist body, and from 
that event organized Methodism may be dated. ^ 

Meanwhile the work was growing with great rapid- 
ity, and the groups of disciples required preachers 
and leaders. Wesley's High-churchmanship revolted 
against the employment of any but ordained men; 
but few clergymen were sympathetic, and he soon 
saw that if his work was to be extended he must use 
the aid of laymen. Begun in one instance as early 
as 1739, by 1 741 lay preachers had become a regular 
and greatly employed feature of Methodism. At 
the first Wesley personally superintended all stations 
and directed the preachers in them; but the task soon 
became physically impossible. Unable to go to 

I Journal, op. cit., p. loo; Tyerman, I, 309, 310. Wesley 
traced the beginnings of the "United Society" to a rather informal 
gathering for prayer and conference begun in London in. Decem- 
ber, 1739. See Tyerman, I, 278. 



JOHN WESLEY 331 

them all, he, therefore, in 1744, began the practice 
of having the preachers come to him. The result 
was the annual "Conference,"^ ultimately to become 
the cornerstone of the governmental system of 
Methodism. These preachers were uneducated for 
the most part, and Wesley saw that, though earnest, 
their usefulness in a field was likely to be speedily 
exhausted. Many stations also were small, and several 
could profitably be served in succession by the same 
speaker. He therefore changed their place of serv- 
ice frequently, and sent the more gifted of them on 
wide-extended missionary tours. The result was 
** itinerancy." Neighboring preaching stations were 
grouped in "circuits," to which these evangeHsts as 
well as the abler Methodist leaders ministered in 
rotation. Thus, by 1746, Wesley had mapped out 
the main features of Methodism. It was no creation 
of a moment; but a growth, a marvelous adjustment 
of means to ends; and the result was such a presenta- 
tion of the gospel to the common people as England 
had never before witnessed. 

Wesley himself was the most indefatigable of 
workers. Of middle height, and slender frame, he 
was of iron endurance. Ordinarily he rose at four 
in the morning, and his waking hours were filled with 
restless activities. Without serious home cares, for 
his marriage in 1751, with a widow, Mrs. Vazeille, 
was uncongenial and unfortunate, he was able to 

I Tyerman, I, 441-48. 



332 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

devote himself wholly to his task. For fifty years he 
preached on the average of five hundred times 
annually. In that half-century he rode no less than 
250,000 miles on horseback. He supervised all the 
details of the Methodist movement, appointed preach- 
ers, settled disputes, and yet found time to be busy 
constantly with his pen. His courage was unshakable. 
No mob-violence affrighted him, no opposition could 
thwart his purpose. His faults were the defects of 
such a temperament. He was occasionally over 
self-reliant. He inclined to be dictatorial. In con- 
troversy he was sometimes contemptuous. He was 
undoubtedly superstitious, holding to the reality of 
witchcraft, and deciding actions of importance by lot, 
or by the first verse of Scripture on which his eyes 
might chance to fall. But his virtues far outweighed 
his faults. In singleness of aim, sincerity of conse- 
cration, and unselfish devotion to his cause he had 
not a superior in Christian history. 

Wesley's humanitarian sympathies were wide. He 
detested slavery; and described the slave-trade in 
1772 as "that execrable sum of all villainies."^ He 
favored Sunday schools and endeavored to extend 
their use. He welcomed the work of John Howard 
for prison and hospital reform. Wesley was not a 
constructive theologian; though in middle life he 
engaged much in theological controversy, especially 
with Calvinists, whose system he regarded as funda- 

I Tyerman, III, 114. 



JOHN WESLEY S33 

mentally immoral. His early companion, White- 
field, was one of those from whom this was a cause 
of separation for a time. He regarded a conscious 
"conversion" as the normal means of entrance on 
the Christian life; and beHeved Christian perfection 
obtainable by the disciple, so that, though a man is 
still liable to ignorance and error and needs Christ's 
constant forgiveness, yet "no wrong temper remains 
in the soul, and all thoughts, words, and actions are 
governed by pure love."^ In its theology he and 
his movement were reactionary, reproducing the 
thoughts of an earlier Protestantism rather than the 
views which were then beginning to be entertained 
and which have since profoundly and widely modi- 
fied conceptions of Christian truth; but in his evan- 
gelic and humanitarian enthusiasm he was a leader 
in the transformation of his age and a prophet of the 
future. 

Wesley had no wish to break with the Church of 
England, though it is not easy to see how his move- 
ment could have been adjusted to it without material 
alterations in its constitution and worship. He 
long called his congregations simply "societies," and 
would suffer none but episcopally ordained men to 
administer the sacraments. The breach came in 
1784, in consequence of the American Revolution. 
Methodism had been introduced into the American 
colonies, in New York City, by immigrants under 

I Ibid., II, 346. 



334 GREAT^MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

the spiritual leadership of Philip Embury, in 1766. 
The work grew rapidly. In 1773, the first American 
Methodist "Conference" was held in Philadelphia. 
But the American Methodists were without ordained 
leaders, and the separation of the United States from 
the mother country made the release of American 
Methodism from British control desirable. Accord- 
ingly, in 1780, Wesley applied to the Bishop of Lon- 
don to ordain a minister for America. The candi- 
date was refused, and, after mature deliberation, 
four years later, Wesley took the matter into his own 
hands. In September, 1784, in Bristol, he himself 
ordained Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey 
for the American ministry, and consecrated Rev. 
Thomas Coke, already a priest of the church of 
England, as "superintendent" for the same work — 
a title which was soon transformed in America, 
apparently by Coke himself, into that of "bishop."^ 
A year later, in a similar way, Wesley ordained min- 
isters for Scotland; and ultimately for service in 
England itself. This was a complete breach with 
the Establishment. Methodism was now provided 
with its own self-perpetuating ministry. 

One further act of 1784 completed the develop- 
ment of Methodism as an independent communion. 
In that eventful year, by a "Deed of Declaration" 
executed by Wesley and recorded in the Court of 
Chancery of Great Britain, the "Conference" was 

I Tyennan, III, 331-34, 426-41. 



JOHN WESLEY 335 

given full legal status, its membership defined, and 
its authority to appoint, control, and expel preachers 
asserted. In its keeping the determination of the 
ministers of the Methodist chapels, then three hun- 
dred and fifty-nine in number, was placed. This 
was a resignation, freely made, by Wesley himself, 
to the representatives of the communion he had 
founded, of the control over it which he had thus 
far exercised. It was a wise and far-seeing act. 
It made Methodism self-governing and self-perpetu- 
ating, and it is not the least evidence of Wesley's 
unselfishness and organizing skill. The master who 
had created and governed knew when to release his 
control. 

Wesley continued his work in remarkable vigor to 
the end of his long life. Of his early associates, 
Whitefield died in 1770, and Charles Wesley in 1788, 
Till the summer of 1789 he found his strength of 
body scarcely abated. Till a few days before his 
death he continued preaching, and his long itinerat- 
ing journeys lasted almost to the end. He died in 
London, March 2, 1791, having nearly reached the 
age of eighty-eight. It was in the fulness of an 
accomplished work that places him first among Eng- 
lish-speaking Christian leaders. No other of his 
race has been so extensive or so abiding in his influ- 
ence for good. 

At Wesley's death Methodism in Great Britain 
and the United States numbered 214 circuits, 507 



33^ GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

preachers, and 119,735 members. In the period 
which has since elapsed it has steadily and rapidly 
advanced, and nowhere so conspicuously as in 
America. It now counts as of its ministry not less 
than 50,596 ordained men, besides its host of lay- 
preachers, and reckons its membership at 8,537,874. 
But organized Methodism, great as it was and is, is 
only a part of the results of the Methodist movement. 
It revived the religious life of England. It formed 
the Christianity of a large part of America. It 
stimulated philanthropy, encouraged missions, and 
remade the Christian ideals of a large part of the 
English-speaking peoples. In a measure granted 
to no other of his nationahty and speech Wesley 
realized his ideal: "I look upon all the world as my 
parish." 

QUESTIONS 

1. What was the effect of the decline of the Puritan con- 
troversy on the religious life of England ? What was Deism ? 
What the state of the higher classes ? 

2. What was the condition of the lower classes? Were 
there able men in the ministry? Why was their work rela- 
tively inefficient ? 

3. When and where was Wesley born? What was his 
parentage and education ? What his abilities as a scholar ? 

4. What books influenced Wesley religiously? How did 
Methodism begin in Oxford? Who were the leaders of the 
club ? How was it regarded by the students generally ? 

5. What can be said of Wesley's sojourn in America? 
Under what influences did he come ? Why were they of value 
to him ? 



JOHN WESLEY 337 

6. What were the time and circumstances of Wesley's 
"conversion"? What journey immediately followed it? 
Why? 

7. What were the characteristics of Wesley's and White- 
field's preaching ? How was it received ? 

8. Where did Wesley establish his first "chapels" ? What 
was the origin of the "class-meeting"? How came Wesley 
to separate from the Moravians ? 

9. Why did Wesley adopt lay-preaching, itinerancy, and 
circuits ? What was the origin of the "Conference" ? What 
Wesley's authority over the Methodist movement? 

10. What were some of Wesley's personal characteristics ? 
His humanitarian zeal ? His theology ? 

11. How did Wesley come to ordain ministers? Signifi- 
cance of the step ? When did American Methodism begin ? 

12. How and when did Wesley resign his authority to the 
"Conference" ? The nature and effects of their action? 

13. Wesley's death? The greatness of his work? Its 
significance ? 

ADDITIONAL READING 

John Wesley's Journal, abridged edition (Cincinnati, 1903). 
Caleb T. Winchester, The Life of John Wesley (New York, 

1906). 
W. H. Fitchett, Wesley and His Century (London, 1906). 



JONATHAN EDWARDS 



XIX 
JONATHAN EDWARDS 

The New England colonies were founded under 
strong religious impulse. Whatever other factors 
entered into the determination of their settlers to 
cross the Atlantic, religion had undoubtedly the 
first place in forming their decision. To a degree 
probably unequaled in other European colonization, 
religion was a universal interest among these immi- 
grants. Their faith, like that of Enghsh Puritanism 
from which they sprang, was of the Calvinistic type, 
strongly insistent on the sovereignty of God, the duty 
of entire obedience to his will, the helplessness of man 
to do right without God's transforming grace, and 
the natural fruitage of that grace in strong, conscien- 
tious character. Like the Puritans generally, they 
believed that the people should have some share in 
the government of church and state; and they carried 
this principle much farther than most Puritans, with 
resultant Congregationalism in church government, 
and a large degree of democracy in civil institutions. 

The intense religious fervor of the immigrants was 
not inherited, however, in its fulness by their children. 
In large measure such a result was inevitable. The 
first generation had been picked men and women in 
whom rehgion had been largely the principle of selec- 

341 



342 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

tion. Their children represented more nearly the aver- 
age type of the English race. Certain special causes 
contributed, however, to the same decHne. The 
isolation of the settlements on the edge of a new con- 
tinent, the constant struggle with the wilderness, and 
the presence of savage foes, were factors tending to 
weaken the ascendency of spiritual interests and to 
lower the high ideal of life. These were combated, 
with considerable success, by a devoted ministry 
and by educational institutions which had their 
crown in the founding of Harvard in 1636, and of 
Yale in 1701; but it was nevertheless true that the 
New England of the first third of the eighteenth cen- 
tury had greatly declined in religious fer\^or from the 
New England of the founders a century earlier. From 
that state of comparative lethargy the land was to be 
aroused by religious revivals, culminating in the 
" Great Awakening" of 1740-42, and in those revivals 
one of the foremost figures was to be that of the man 
who was also the ablest theologian and most powerful 
thinker that colonial New England produced, Jona- 
than Edwards. In him are to be seen the qualities of 
his age and country in their most characteristic, and 
at the same time in their noblest, development. 

Jonathan Edwards was born in what is now South 
Windsor, Connecticut, on October 5, 1703, the same 
year that witnessed the birth of John Wesley. His 
father, Timothy Edwards, was pastor of the church 
in that parish, and a man of marked intellectual 



JONATHAN EDWARDS 343 

abilities; his mother was a daughter of Solomon 
Stoddard, the distinguished minister of Northampton, 
Massachusetts. He was the only son among eleven 
children. By heredity and training he was a typical 
representative of that class of conspicuous leader- 
ship in colonial New England which sought service 
in the Christian ministry. His early education was 
in his father's study; but he developed, even in boy- 
hood, an innate keenness of observation of the ways 
of nature and a capacity for intelligent reasoning that 
were prophetic of his maturer powers. When not 
quite thirteen years old, in 1716, he entered Yale 
College. That recently founded seat of learning 
had as yet no certain home, and much of Edwards' 
course was spent in Wethersfield; but before its 
close the college had ceased wandering, and in New 
Haven he graduated, in 1720, at the head of his class. 
For the next two years he remained at the college 
engaged in further study. In these student days he 
not only read such philosophical works as he could 
procure, but began to formulate ideas of his own 
which show that had he been later less absorbed in 
theology, he might have been one of the greatest of 
the philosophers of the eighteenth century. 

Always religious by nature, Edwards, not far from 
the time of his graduation, had an experience resem- 
bling that of Wesley, though even more mystical in 
form than the latter's "conversion." As he was 
reading the Pauline ascription: "Now unto the King 



344 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be 
honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen,"' there 
came into his soul " a sense of the glory of the Divine 
Being." He thought: "How excellent a Being that 
was, and how happy [he] should be if [he] might enjoy 
that God .... and be as it were swallowed up in 
Him forever. "* This mystical sense of the presence 
and reality of God and of the possibility of union of 
soul with him was to Edwards ever after the guiding 
principle of his religious life. God was henceforth 
not merely the most real of beings, but the dearest 
object of devotion. A Christian life without outgo- 
ing affection toward God and cheerful and acquies- 
cent submission to all God's dealings with men was 
henceforth inconceivable for him. This led him to 
hearty acceptance of those Calvinistic doctrines of 
divine sovereignty which had heretofore seemed 
unpalatable to him; and the Calvinistic system, in 
its essential features, was to have in him its ablest 
American exponent. 

A few months of preaching in New York City, 
in 1722 and 1723, ripened the youthful Edwards' 
spiritual nature by pastoral experience. To this 
period, when not yet twenty years old, belong his 
remarkable series of resolutions, of which one of the 
most characteristic is : " Never to do any manner of 

1 1 Tim. 1:17. 

a Edwards' own narrative, in S. E. Dwight, The Life oj 
President Edwards (New York, 1830), p. 60. 



JONATHAN EDWARDS 345 

thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but 
what tends to the glory of God, nor be, nor suffer it, 
if I can possibly avoid it."^ His services were now 
sought by several churches; but, from 1724 to 1726, 
he filled with much ability a tutorship in Yale Col- 
lege. Probably one inducing cause of his return to 
New Haven was the residence in that town of the 
remarkable woman whom he was to marry on July 
28, 1727 — Sarah Pierpont, a daughter of Rev. James 
Pierpont, the New Haven pastor from 1685 to 17 14. 
She was indeed well worthy of his regard, and the 
union thus instituted was to be of the happiest. With 
unusual susceptibility to deep religious emotion, Mrs. 
Edwards combined executive force, social charm, 
and sweet, womanly leadership. A few months 
prior to this marriage Edwards accepted a call to 
become colleague pastor with his grandfather, 
Solomon Stoddard, in the care of the church in 
Northampton, Massachusetts. To this charge he 
was ordained on February 15, 1727, and the death 
of Stoddard two years later left the pastorate wholly 
to him. 

Edwards was at once marked as a preacher of 
power. As in England before the work of Wesley 
and Whitefield, the characteristic preaching of the 
time was unemotional and little calculated to arouse 
strenuous feeling. Edwards' theologic position and 
his type of ^preaching were largely a return to those 

^ In full, Dwight, op. cit., pp. 68-73. 



346 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

characteristic of the founders of New England. In 
marked contrast to Wesley, his doctrine was intensely 
Calvinistic. The intellectual note was more evident 
than in the discourses of the great English evangelist. 
But, like Wesley, Edwards appealed powerfully to 
the emotions, though more by the matter of his 
message than by its form. In sermons of tremen- 
dous logical power, and often of vivid, sometimes 
lurid, imagery, he set forth God's absolute sovereign 
right to deal with men either in salvation or damna- 
tion, the joys of the Christian life, and the fearful 
terrors which he held to be the certain lot of the 
wicked. Such preaching had powerful effect. In 
December, 1734, a "revival," lasting some months, 
began in Northampton, that soon attracted public 
interest not merely in America but in Great 
Britain.' 

Naturally one whose own ministry was so evangel- 
istic welcomed George Whitefield when that greatest 
of English preachers made his meteoric tour of New 
England in 1740. It seemed as if the successes of 
his own Northampton ministry were now repeated on 
a scale commensurate with the English-speaking 
colonies. Wherever Whitefield went his congrega- 
tions were as wax in his hands. Men cried out and 
women fainted. The work thus begun was taken up 

I At the instance of Rev. Drs. Isaac Watts and John Guyse, 
Edwards prepared an account, to be found in any edition of his 
WorkSf and generally known as the Narrative of Surprising Con- 



JONATHAN EDWARDS 347 

by many evangelists, among whom Edwards himself 
was conspicuous, and the period of tremendous 
religious upheaval from 1740 to 1742 is known as 
the "Great Awakening." To Edwards it seemed 
at first the dawn of the millennial age. But, intense 
as it was for the time being, the movement soon spent 
its force, and it left behind a wake of division and 
controversy as to its real value. In Edwards the 
revival had a vigorous defender, though he was not 
blind to its extravagances; and after it had passed, 
he wrote, in 1746, in calm retrospect, his noble 
Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, in which 
he attempted to answer the question, "What is the 
nature of true religion?" To Edwards' thinking 
nothing deserves the name of religion that falls short 
of an absolute change of disposition, wrought by the 
Holy Spirit, and showing itself in unselfish love for 
divine things because they are holy, in meekness, 
tenderness of heart, and a life of Christian conduct 
toward one's fellow-men. 

These experiences produced one change of impor- 
tance in Edwards' own thinking. The church of 
which he was pastor had so far departed, under his 
grandfather's leadership, from original New England 
practice, as to admit all serious-minded seekers, 
whether consciously Christians or not, to the Lord's 
Supper. Edwards was now convinced of the wrong- 
fulness of the custom, and not only refused further 
admissions on such terms, but wrote powerfully 



348 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

against it in his Humble Inquiry of 1749.' This 
change of practice, and certai - mismanaged cases 
of discipHne, turned his congregation against him. 
Great as he was as a thinker and a preacher, Edwards 
had little skill in handling men. The result was a 
distressing dispute, issuing in his dismissal from the 
Northampton pastorate in June, 1750. 

Driven from his parish, at the age of forty-seven, 
with a family of ten children, he ultimately found 
employment in 1751, in the Httle frontier village of 
Stockbridge, Massachusetts, as pastor of its church 
and as the missionary of the Enghsh " Society for 
Propagating the Gospel in New England" to the 
Housatonic Indians there settled. To him the 
change was in many ways an exile, but it gave him 
the relative leisure and opportunity to write the works 
on which his fame as a theologian and as a philos- 
opher rests. To Edwards the years in Stockbridge 
were his intellectual harvest time. 

Of Edwards' four treatises, written in this event- 
ful period, that on Freedom of Will,^ pubhshed in 
1754, is the most famous, though not perhaps the 
most influential. It was reared as a bulwark in 

I An Humble Inquiry into the Rules of the Word of Gody 
Concerning the Qualification Requisite to a Contpleat Standing and 
Full Communion in the Visible Christian Church (Boston, 1749). 

a A Careful and Strict Enquiry into the Modern Prevailing 
Notions of That Freedom of Will Which Is Supposed to Be Essen- 
tial to Moral Agency^ Vertue and Vice, Reward and Punishment^ 
Praise and Blame (Boston, 1754). 



JONATHAN EDWARDS 349 

defense of what Edwards believed a threatened Cal- 
vinism, and endeavors to show that man has sufficient 
freedom to be responsible for his actions, that he is 
not forced to act counter to his incHnation, and yet 
that that incHnation depends on what man deems 
his highest good. While man has full natural power 
to serve God — that is, could freely serve God if he 
had such an inclination — he will not serve God till God 
reveals himself to man as his highest good and thus 
renders obedience to God man's strongest motive. 
Edwards sought thus to maintain God's absolute 
sovereignty and complete disposal of his creatures, 
while holding men yet responsible. No keener argu- 
ment in favor of this cardinal tenet of Calvinism 
has ever been advanced ; yet the work is one so out of 
sympathy with the prevaiHng religious thought of the 
present age that is now largely neglected. 

Even less present sympathy is commanded by 
Edwards' exposition of Original Sin,^ issued in 
1758. He afhrms the utter corruption of mankind 
at whatever stage of existence from infancy to old 
age, and traces that evil state to our share in Adam's 
sin by a theory more ingenious than convincing. 
That which makes the individual man the same beins 
today he was yesterday is the constant creative 
activity of God. In Hke manner, God, by an "arbi- 
trary constitution, " has made all men one with Adam, 
so that his primal sin is really theirs also. 

I The Great Christian Doctrine 0} Original Sin Defended 
(Boston, 1758). 



3SO GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

The two works just described were published in 
Edwards' lifetime ; but two further discussions had 
been completed and were issued seven years after 
his death. One was Concerning the End for Which 
God Created the World, and had for its purpose to 
demonstrate that the manifestation of the glory of 
the creator, and the largest happiness of human 
beings, far from being incompatible purposes, as had 
been generally supposed, were "really one and the 
same thing." The universe in its highest possible 
state of happiness is the completest exhibition of the 
divine glory. 

Most influential on New England thinking of any 
of Edwards' writings, though not so famous as his 
Freedom of Will, was the second of these posthumous 
publications, his Nature of True Virtue. In his think- 
ing all virtue may be reduced to a single elemental 
principle. It is benevolence or love toward inteUigent 
being in proportion to the amount of being which 
each personaHty possesses. No love less wide than 
this can be really good. Judged by this standard, a 
man must love God and his fellow-men more than 
he does himself. As interpreted by popular thought, 
it taught that sin is selfishness and righteousness is 
disinterested love to God and to one's fellows. No 
wonder that the earliest American foreign mission- 
aries came from the ranks of Edwards' disciples. 

In these works the American mind reached the 
highest level it attained in the eighteenth century. 



JONATHAN EDWARDS 351 

They won widespread respect for their author as a 
man of genius, and they made thousands of theo- 
logical disciples. It seemed as if Edwards was to 
have further opportunities to impress his thoughts 
and character on young men as the head of a school 
of learning. Princeton College had been founded 
in 1746, in hearty sympathy with the warm-hearted, 
revivahstic type of piety in furtherance of which 
Edwards had done such service. In 1757 he was 
called to its presidency. He hesitated to accept. 
Stockbridge afforded him the opportunity of quiet 
study and leisure for writing. Yet the possibility of 
influencing men in their formative years which the 
headship of Princeton would afford was not to be 
decHned. Early in 1758 he removed to the scene of 
his new work. The small-pox was raging, and as a 
preventive measure he had himself inoculated. The 
disease, although usually mild under such circum- 
stances, took an unfavorable turn, and on March 22, 
1758, he died. 

No man more fittingly symboHzes eighteenth- 
century New England at its best than Jonathan 
Edwards. High-minded, upright in all his deahngs, 
learned, a devoted preacher, and a theologian of 
surpassing power, he represented that love of learn- 
ing, that carefulness of conduct, and that sense of 
the primacy of the concerns of the soul, which was 
characteristic of his people in their noblest develop- 
ment — often, unfortunately, unreaHzed in the average 



352 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

man of that or any other age. His controversies are 
now ancient issues from which interest has largely 
vanished. His theology was molded by the view- 
points of his age, and awakens only a partial response 
in the present. But one characteristic abides in 
power and must forever link him with the great men 
of all Christian history. He had — and in a peculiar 
degree he made men feel that he had — a conscious- 
ness of the reaUty and presence of God. God was 
not to him a being remote and obscure. He was 
the closest of friends, the highest object of his loy- 
alty, his adoration, and his love. That he walked 
close with God must always be the deepest impression 
which Edwards makes on those who come to know 
him and to understand the sources of his power. 

QUESTIONS 

1. What influences led to the founding of the New England 
colonies ? What was the religious character of the settlers ? 

2. What causes induced a decline from the religious zeal 
of the founders ? 

3. When and where was Jonathan Edwards born? His 
parentage and early education ? His promise as a student ? 

4. What were the circumstances of Edwards' conversion? 
What effect did it have on his conceptions of religion ? 

5. Where did Edwards teach? With what success? 

6. Whom did Edwards marry? Her character? 

7. Where was Edwards' first pastorate? His character 
as a preacher? The first revival? What attention did it 
excite ? 

8. When did Whitefield come to New England? Effect 
of his preaching ? What was Edwards' relation to the revival ? 



JONATHAN EDWARDS 353 

9. What were the teachings of Edwards' Treatise Concern- 
ing Religious Affections ? What change came over his views of 
the terms of admission to communion ? What effect had this 
change on his relations to his Northampton church ? 

10. Where was Edwards next settled ? What advantages 
and disadvantages had the place for him? What was his 
chief work there ? 

11. Describe Edwards' Freedom of Will. What impor- 
tance is generally attached to it ? 

12. Speak of Edwards' Original Sin. Is its argument of 
permanent value ? 

13. What was the aim of his treatise, Concerning the End 
for Which God Created the World? 

14. What was the importance of his Nature of True 
Virtue ? Its conception of righteousness ? 

15. What college presidency did Edwards accept? His 
death ? His character ? 

ADDITIONAL READING 
S. E. Dwight, The Life of President Edwards (New York, 

1830). 
Alexander V. G. Allen, Jonathan Edwards (Boston, 1889). 
Williston Walker, Ten New England Leaders (Boston, 1901), 

pp. 215-63. 



HORACE BUSHNELL 



XX 
HORACE BUSHNELL 

Though the "Great Awakening'^ of 1740-42 
aroused what are now the New England and the 
middle states more intensely while it lasted than any 
other revival in their history, its effects speedily 
passed. As a whole, the eighteenth century was a 
period of religious decline in American history. 
The struggle for independence, which was but the 
severest of several wars in which public interest was 
profoundly enlisted, and the absorbing discussions 
which resulted in the formation of the Constitution of 
the United States, turned men's minds largely from 
spiritual interests. With the conclusion of these 
debates, however, a new and protracted period of 
religious awakening began. Commencing in 1792, 
and continuing at intervals till 1858, great revivals 
occurred in New England, the middle and southern 
states, and the new West of that age which is now 
the central region of the United States. It was a 
time of universal quickening. Evangelists, of whom 
Rev. Charles G. Finney may be mentioned as typical, 
preached with constant evidence of power to move 
men. Itinerant missionaries of Methodism, and 
ministers of Baptist, Presbyterian, Congregational, 
and other communions carried the gospel message 
to the new settlers on the ever-extending frontier and 
357 



358 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

organized them into churches. Ministerial train- 
ing received a great impetus through the establish- 
ment of theological seminaries. Foreign missions 
were inaugurated in 1810. Temperance reform be- 
gan its beneficent work before the nineteenth century 
had far advanced. The agitation against slavery 
more and more enlisted attention from the fourth 
decade of that century till its settlement in the tre- 
mendous struggle between the states. The long 
period from 1792 to 1865 was, beyond any other in 
American history, one of religious growth and of 
quickening of public conscience on questions of 
moral reform. 

In its dominant theological problems, its attitude 
toward theology in general, and its conception of the 
Christian Hfe this period still bore the mighty impress 
of the leaders of the eighteenth century. With 
Wesley, Whitefield, and Edwards, men felt that the 
normal method of entrance into the Kingdom of 
God was by a conscious surrender — a "conversion." 
To secure such conversions was the object of revival 
effort. Salvation was emphasized in its individual 
rather than its social aspects. 

The questions with which that period concerned 
itself in theology were essentially those which 
Edwards had made prominent; and as with the 
eighteenth-century thinkers, theology was regarded 
as capable of as exact, and as fundamentally intel- 
lectual, definition as the problems of geometry. 



HORACE BUSHNELL 359 

Theology was based on the apprehensions of the 
understanding rather than on the feelings, and, being 
so based, was largely in bondage to formalism in 
logical method and definition. This conception of 
theology trained a race of giant wrestlers; but it 
tended to magnify intellectual differences in the 
apprehension of relatively minor aspects of Christian 
truth into barriers scarcely to be passed. No period 
in our religious history has therefore been more 
prolific in denominational divisions. 

Contemporary with this period, however, modi- 
fications of a very wide-reaching character were tak- 
ing place in theology in Germany and England. The 
nature and work of Christ, the authority of Scripture, 
and the bases of religious truth were being re-ex- 
amined. The character of theologic proof was 
investigated anew. These European discussions 
were slow in influencing American thought, and their 
effects were scarcely felt in the period just described, 
though they have since come in as a flood. That 
when they did come they created no more conflict 
than actually occurred was due in considerable 
measure, at least in the northeastern part of the 
United States, to the work of Horace Bushnell, who 
with sHght knowledge of what was in progress abroad, 
wrought on similar lines, presented an altered basis 
for theological conviction, and made their pathway 
easier for many when the time of transition and re- 
statement arrived. 



360 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

Horace Bushnell was born on April 14, 1802, in 
the village of Bantam in the township of Litchfield, 
Connecticut. His parents were of sturdy, enter- 
prising farming stock. His father had been trained 
a Methodist; his mother an EpiscopaHan, but both 
were devoted members of the Congregational church, 
which was the onty place of worship in New Preston, 
Connecticut, whither they removed when their son 
was three years old. In New Preston, Bushnell 
spent an active, hard-working boyhood; and there 
he made public profession of his Christian faith when 
nineteen years old in 1821. Two years later he 
entered Yale, graduating in due course in 1827. 

BushnelPs college course was a time of intellectual 
questioning and painful doubt. He began to fear 
that religio ■ could never be demonstrated by the 
understanding — the only way in which he then knew 
how to approach Christian truth. In this distressed 
frame of mind he met with the Aids to Reflection, 
that profoundly influential volume which the Eng- 
lish poet-philosopher, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, had 
published in 1825. It was hard reading but it 
opened to Bushnell a new world. Coleridge not 
merely introduced German theology to English 
readers. To him Christian truth is not so much to 
be demonstrated by logic as perceived by ethical and 
spiritual feeling.^ It derives its evidence "from 

I The writer has made some use of his address at the cele- 
bration of the one-hundreth anniversary of Bushnell's birth by the 
Connecticut General Association, on June 17, 1902. 



HORACE BUSHNELL 361 

within." These thoughts were germinal for Bush- 
nell's later development. They were a radical de- 
parture from the type of theological demonstration 
then characteristic of Anglo-Saxon thinking. They 
ultimately placed religious certainty for him on a new 
foundation. 

Bushnell's doubts, however, did not immediately 
vanish. On graduation he tried journalism and 
next began the study of law. With that em- 
ployment he combined the discharge of the duties 
of a tutorship in Yale which he accepted in 1829; 
and in connection with his labors as instructor a 
crisis in his faith and in his life-purposes came. 
The year 1831 was marked by a revival in 
Yale. Bushnell was distressed by his own want 
of sympathy with its enthusiasm; but he felt that 
he must do his duty by his students. He must 
follow such light as he had. He must "take the 
principle of right" for his law. It was a turning- 
point in his experience. A mighty rush of feel- 
ing burst the barrier of his intellectual doubts. 
As he said to his fellow-tutors: "I have a heart 
as well as a head. My heart wants the Father; 
my heart wants the Son; my heart wants the Holy 
Ghost — and one just as much as the other. My 
heart says the Bible has a Trinity for me, and I 
mean to hold by my heart." "The whole sky" of 
his religious firmament became "luminous about 
him;" and through this gateway of the feelings 



362 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

Bushnell entered into the freedom and certainty of 
the Kingdom of God.^ 

Bushnell's new-found faith decided him to enter 
the ministry, and, from 1 831 to 1833, he was a student 
in the theological department of Yale. On May 22, 
of the year last mentioned he was ordained to the 
pastorate of the North Congregational Church in 
Hartford, Connecticut, and so entered on the service 
of the city which was to be henceforth his home. 

In Hartford Bushnell soon won attention as a 
preacher and a public-spirited citizen. As a pastor 
he was greatly beloved. Not an orator in the ordi- 
nary sense, his sermons and pubHc addresses were, 
nevertheless, of impressive power, and continue to 
command appreciation, in published form, as among 
the best productions of the American pulpit of the 
nineteenth century. As a citizen, he was a man of 
far-reaching vision and inspiring leadership. Hart- 
ford owed to him much of the impulse that led to the 
introduction of public water works, and the beautiful 
park which bears his name was secured, in 1853 and 
1854, entirely by his efforts at a time when the public 
mind had not generally awakened to the desirability 
of such improvements. This breadth and vitality 
of interest were the more remarkable because Bush- 
nell's Hartford ministry was conducted under great 
physical disabilities. A tendency to pulmonary 

I Mary Bushnell Cheney, Life and Letters of Horace Bushnell 
(New York, 1880), pp. 56, 59. 



HORACE BUSHNELL 3^3 

affection was evident as early as 1845. In that year 
and the next he sought health in Europe. Ten years 
later he went on the same errand to Cuba; most of 
1856 was spent in California; but his disabilities so 
advanced that, in 1859, he had to lay down the 
burdens of the pastorate, and the remainder of his 
life he himself aptly described as one of "broken 
industry." Industrious it always was, and the 
marvel was that so feeble a frame could serve the 
active spirit as efficiently as it did. 

BushnelPs first considerable doctrinal discussion 
arose, in 1847, by reason of the publication of two 
Discourses on Christian Nurtured The age, as has 
been pointed out, was dominated by conceptions of 
entrance on the Christian life by a conscious, strug- 
gling "conversion" which Wesley and Edwards had 
made prominent. Over against this teaching Bush- 
nell emphasized the value of family training. His 
argument was "that the child should grow up a 
Christian," to which he added the further explana- 
tion in the second edition of his work, "and never 
know himself as being otherwise." "He is to open 
on the world as one that is spiritually renewed, not 
remembering the time when he went through a 
technical experience, but seeming rather to have 
loved what is good from his earliest years. "^ Here, 

j: Boston and Hartford. An enlarged and revised edition was 
published at New York in 1861. 
a Edition of 1861, p. 10. 



364 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

then, was a sweeping criticism of what most of his 
contemporaries in non-prelatical American churches 
believed to be the only normal mode of entrance on 
the Christian life; a presentation, moreover, which 
identified the natural and the supernatural as but 
different sides of one divine order. Doubtless, its 
emphasis, like that of the view it opposed, was one- 
sided. There are many doors into the Kingdom of 
God. Nathanael came as truly as Paul. But, in 
the existing state of religious opinion, Bushnell's 
doctrine encountered strenuous opposition. Yet no 
theory advocated by him has won so wide acceptance, 
even if it is still far from meeting universal approval. 
A profound religious experience through which 
Bushnell passed in February, 1848, prepared him 
for three remarkable addresses of that year, which he 
gathered together in a volume and published, in 
1849, ^s God in Christy To them he prefaced a 
"Dissertation on Language" in which he explained, 
more fully than elsewhere, his convictions as to the 
nature and limitations of theology. To his thinking, 
the effort of theologians to define the exact content 
of religious truth in precise logical formulas was an 
attempt to achieve the impossible, since language 
could have no such power. Its words are more or 
less imperfect symbols of the realities they typify. 
On the contrary. Christian truth is to be felt rather 
than logically to be demonstrated. "There is a 

I Hartford. 



HORACE BUSHNELL 3^5 

perceptive power in spiritual life . . . . , an imme- 
diate experimental knowledge of God, by virtue of 
which, and partly in the degree of which, Christian 
theology is possible."^ Bushnell thus voices the 
appeal of Christianity to the ethical and religious 
feelings. 

Having laid down these principles, Bushnell pro- 
ceeded to define the Trinity and the Atonement in 
terms of Christian experience. What God may be 
in the depths of his infinite existence we may not 
grasp, but to our finite experience he is known as 
Father, Son, and Spirit. Christ's work, also, as 
known by our experience of it, is not a penal satisfac- 
tion to God for our sins, nor a governmental expres- 
sion of God's moral rulership. Its eft'ect is upon us. 
It is the ultimate expression of God's outreaching 
love to us, designed to draw us to him and lead us 
to regard sin and holiness from his point of view. 

It is not surprising that a work that controverted 
then current theology at so many points aroused 
great dissent, and a demand that Bushnell be sub- 
jected to discipline. His own local association, 
though far from sympathizing in his views, declared 
him not "justly subjected to a charge of heresy." 
But another association brought the question before 
the General Association of Connecticut by appeals in 
1849 ^^nd 1850, which were repeated in 1852, 1853, 
and 1854. It was a stormy time; but, in the end, the 

« God in Christ, p. 93. 



366 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

General Association refused to override the action 
of the local association of which Bushnell was a mem- 
ber. Thenceforward he was free from the peril of 
ecclesiastical discipline. 

Bushnell's already feeble health was shattered by 
these labors and struggles; but in his invalidism he 
labored on the work which cost him most effort and 
to which he devoted his maturest thought. Pub- 
lished at length in 1858, it bore the title, Nature and 
the Supernatural as Together Constituting the One 
System of God.^ Its contention is expressed in its 
title. The thought of the time separated the realm 
of nature and that of the supernatural by a great 
gulf. A miracle was a suspension of the laws of 
nature, which were for the time being as if they were 
not. In opposition to these views Bushnell argued 
that the two realms are in constant contact. Man 
lives in both. In part of his range of life he is in the 
sphere of cause and effect — of nature; in part he is 
free, self-governing or sinning, not under a law of 
cause and effect, but in the realm of the supernat- 
ural, i. e., that which is above the world of nature. 
Doubtless the growth of the doctrine of evolution has 
rendered obsolete much of Bushnell's argument; but 
its general trend is in the direction in which modern 
theology has moved, that of emphasizing the im- 
manence of God, and of showing that the spiritual 
and the natural combine in the commonest ongoings 

I New York, 1858. 



HORACE BUSHNELL 36? 

of everyday life no less than in the great progress of 
redemption. 

Bushnell's work was by no means accomplished 
when the volume just described was given to the 
world, but its more permanently influential part 
had already been achieved. Two sturdy and care- 
fully wrought treatises, having to do with the Atone- 
ment, were to follow — The Vicarious Sacrifice 
Grounded in Principles of Universal Obligation, pub- 
lished in 1866, and Forgiveness and Law Grounded 
in Principles Interpreted by Human Analogies, of 
1874. Their argument holds that "love is a prin> 
ciple essentially vicarious in its own nature." All 
love really worthy of the name, whether in God or 
man, strives to take on itself in helpful sympathy the 
sufferings and sins of the object of its affection. So 
Christ bore our sins in suffering for us, and so he 
reveals God's love to us. It was not by his interpre- 
tation of specific doctrines, however, that Bushnell 
influenced his age, so much as by his general attitude 
toward theologic truth, and the basis of its appeal to 
men. He stood for the rights of the feelings and of 
Christian experience to be heard rather than for the 
demonstrations of logic or the formulas which make 
their appeal primarily to the intellectual faculties. 
Theology with him is not an external body of truth 
interpreted to the reason, but a warm, vital Christian 
life of fellowship with God in Christ finding expres- 
sion all too inadequately through the imperfect 



368 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

vehicle of language. It is something to be felt before 
it can fully be known. 

With the publication of Bushnell's volume last 
mentioned his work was about over. His last years 
had been limited by great physical weakness; but 
the spirit retained all its eager keenness till it took its 
flight on February 17, 1876. His was a remarkable 
example of what may be accomplished amid the 
varied duties of an exacting pastorate and under the 
constant burden of disease. 

Bushnell was not a theologian in the sense in which 
that designation may be applied to Edwards. He 
had no desire to be. He wrought out no close- 
argued logical system. He believed none possible, 
and he regarded it as the chief evil of contemporary 
theology that men had made the endeavor. He 
founded no school. No party calls itself by his name. 
But he had a poet's fire of imagination, and a proph- 
et's perception of the reality of God. He strove 
to reach back beyond the formulas in which his con- 
temporaries believed Christian truth to be absolutely 
defined to the greater spiritual verities which they 
and he alike felt, but which he regarded their for- 
mulas as merely symbolizing and oftentimes misrepre- 
senting. He sought to make the presentation of 
Christianity simpler and more natural. In so doing, 
he made easy for many the transition from the older 
to the newer conceptions of the Christian faith. His 
work touched and strengthened and broadened many 



HORACE BUSHNELL 369 

a mind that has been unable to accept his presenta- 
tions of truth in their fulness. These are his greatest 
achievements, and they give him an abiding position 
in the histor of American religious thought. 

QUESTIONS 

1. Were the effects of the Great Awakening permanent? 
What was the religious state of America during most of the 
eighteenth century? What great movement began about 
1792? 

2. What were some of the results of the new revival 
period ? How long did it last ? 

3. What was the dominant conception of the mode of 
entrance on the Christian life ? How was theology conceived ? 
What changes were in progress in Europe ? 

4. W^hen and where was Horace Bushnell born? His 
parentage? Religious antecedents? His Christian profes- 
sion ? Where did Bushnell go to college ? 

5. What was the argument of Coleridge's Aids to Reflec- 
tion? What was its influence on Bushnell? What was 
Bushnell's career immediately after graduation ? His religious 
doubts ? How were they overcome ? 

6. How did Bushnell decide to enter the ministry? His 
training? His settlement? Character of his preaching? 
His services as a citizen ? His health ? 

7. What was the view advocated in Bushnell's Discourses 
on Christian Nurture ? Why and how did it oppose the cur- 
rent opinion of the time ? 

8. How came Bushnell to write his God in Christ? His 
theory of the power of language to express religious truth? 
How is Christian truth to be known ? 

9. How did Bushnell apply his principles to the doctrines 
of the Trinity and the Atonement ? What efforts were made 
to discipline him ? 



370 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

10. What was the significance of his Nature and the 
Supernatural? How, in his opinion, are the two realms 
related ? 

11. What were Bushnell's later writings ? Their purpose ? 
What was the most significant part of his teaching ? 

12. Bushnell's death? His influence? 

ADDITIONAL READING 

[Mary Bushnell Cheney] Life and Letters of Horace Bushnell 
(New York, 1880). 

Theodore T. Munger, Horace Bushnell^ Preacher and Theolo- 
gian (Boston, 1899). 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abdard, theologian, 178, 179. 

Abraham, 13. 

Adeodatus, 68, 72. 

Ailli, Pierre d', theologian, 210. 

Albertus Magnus, theologian, 181, 183. 

Albigenses, see Cathari. 

Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, 51- 
53- 

Alexander IT, Pope, 129, 130. 

Alexander III, Pope, 162, 167. 

Alexander of Hales, 181. 

Alexandria, theological school of, 45, 
46; Arianism in, 48, 50-60. 

Alexios, emperor, 144, 147, 148. 

Alypius, 72. 

Amator, bishop of Auxerre, 93. 

Ambrose, bishop of Milan, 71, 72, 
103, 107. 

Anabaptists, the, 293. 

Anastasius, Roman emperor, 121. 

Anselm, theologian, 178. 

Anthony, monastic founder, 104. 

Antioch, siege of, 148, 149. 

Antoninus Pius, Roman emperor, 11. 

Aquinas, Thomas, early life, 182; a 
Dominican, 182, 183; his career, 
183, 184; death, 184; his aims, 
181, 182; writings, 184; the Sum- 
ma, 184, 18^; the bases of truth, 
185, 186; sin and grace, 186-88; 
the sacraments, 188-90; the future 
state, 191; influence, 191, 192; 
mentioned, 177, 181, 197, 198. 

Arcadius, Roman emperor, 91. 

Argyle, the earl of, 260. 

Aristotle, influence of, 180, 181, 223. 

Arius, theologian, 50-56, 59, 75. 

Aries, Synod of, 89. 

Amdt, Johann, 304. 

Athanasius, early career, 53; purpose, 
54, 55; theology, 54; first bnnish- 
ment, 56; second, 57, 58; at Sar- 
dica, 57; his great struggle, 58; 
later exiles, 58, 60; death, 60; char- 
acter, 61; mentioned, 65, 103, 105, 
106. 

Augsburg, the Confession of, 231, 315; 
the Peace of, 231. 

Augustine, theologian, early life, 67, 
68; temptations, 68, 71; his son, 
68, 72; intellectual awakening, 68; 
dislikes the Bible, 69; a Manichae- 
an, 60, 70; influenced by neo- 
Platonism, 70, 7a; professorship in 



Milan, 70; influenced by Ambrose, 
71, 72; conversion, 71, 72; baptism, 
72; return to Africa, 73; the Con- 
fessions, 67, 68, 73, 80; bishop of 
Hippo, 73; death, 73; influence, 
74; on the church and sacraments, 
75, 76, 188; on sin and grace, 76- 
80, 188; mysticism, 80; his Ciiy 
of God, 81; mentioned, 29, 88, 90, 
91, 103, 107, 160, 178, 181, 184, 
200, 221, 222, 248. 

Augustine, missionary, 120. 

Augustinians, the, 219, 221, 223. 

Awakening, the Great, 342, 346, 347, 
357- 

Baldwin, crusader, 147, 149, 151- 

Baptism, 14, 15, 26, 33, 34, 78, 189, 
190, 227. 

Bar Cochba, 10. 

Basel, Council of, 218. 

Basil, the Great, theologian, 60, 106, 
107. 

Beaton, David, Cardinal, 256, 257. 

Beaton, James, Archbishop, 256. 

Benedict, monastic reformer, life, 
107, 108; his "Rule," 108-12. 

Berkeley, George, Bishop, 323. 

Bernadone, John, see Francis. 

Bernadone, Peter, 164-66. 

Bemhard, of Clairvaux, theologian, 
178, 179, 221. 

Bible, translations of the, 161, 163, 
204, 219, 220. 

Bobadilla, Nicolo, 278. 

Bohler, Peter, 327. 

Bohemond, crusader, 146, 149, 150. 

Boleyn, Anne, 262. 

Bonaventura, theologian, 181. 

Boniface VHI, Pope, 197. 

Boniface, missionary, 120. 

Borgia, Francisco, 280, 281. 

Bothwell, the earl of, 266. 

Bruno, bishop of Toul, 126. 

Bucer, Martin, reformer, 238. 

Bullinger, Heinrich, reformer, 239. 

Bushnell, Horace, religious antecedents, 
357-5Q*. early life, 360; spiritual 
struggles, 360-62; ministry, 362, 
363; his Christian Nurture^, 363; 
his God in Christ, 364; ecclesiastical 
discipline, 365, 366; later writings, 
366, 367; death, 368; influence, 
368, 369. 



373 



374 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 



Caelestius, 79, 80. 

Cajetan, Cardinal, 225. 

Calixtus 1, bishop of Rome, 35, 36, 
44- 

Calixtus 11, Pope, 135. 

Calpurnius, go. 

Calvin, John, religious antecedents, 
239; early life, 230; education, 240, 
241; his Seneca, 241; conversion, 
241-43; the Institutes, 243. 248; 
settlement in Geneva, 244, 245; 
in Sirassburg, 245; marriage, 245; 
return to Geneva, 245, 246; the 
Consistory, 246; opposition, 246; 
Servetus, 246; the Academy, 247; 
his aims and activities, 247, 
248; relations to Knox, 255, 259; 
death, 248; theology, 248-51; 
mentioned, 2s8, 277. 

Canstein. Baron von, 307. 

Cappel, battle of. 239. 

Carlos, prince of Spain, 266. 

Cassiodorius, in. 

Cathari, the, 160-62, 170, 173. 

Catherine de' Medici, 261. 

Catholic, origin of name, 23; see, 
also. Church. 

Celestine, Pope, g^, 94. 

Chalcedon, Council of, 65. 

Charlemagne, emperor, 121-23. 

Charles 1, king of England, 290. 

Charles V, emperor, 228, 229. 

Christ, the person of, 6, 13, 36, 48-51, 
53-5.'i, 59 65 66; imitation of. 159, 
160; the work of, 187, 221, 232, 
240, 36"?. 367- 

Christian VI, king of Denmark, 311. 

Church, the "Old-Catholic," 7, 23, 
24, 27, 29, 30; theories of member- 
ship, 34-,^6; Augustine's doctrine, 
75; Wicllf and Hu?s, 201, 210; 
Luther, 224, 227, 232. 

Cicero, 68. 

Cisnero, of Manresa. 276. 

Clement, of Alexandria, 45. 

Clement, of Rome, 119. 

Clement III, anti-Pope, 134. 

Clement VII, anti-Pope, 205. 

Cluny, the monastery and movement, 
125-27, 142, 143, 147- 

Coke, Thomas, 334. 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 360. 

Columba, missionary, 98. 

Communion, see Supper. 

Congregationalism;, the, 289, 290. 

Conrad III, emperor, 152. 

Constance, Council of, 205, 211, 212, 
218, 226. 

Constansj Roman emperor, 56-58. 

Constantme, Roman emperor, favors 
Christianity, 47, 48; in the Arian 



controversy, si-S3, 55, S6; men- 
tioned, 34, 88, 142, 148. 

Constantine II, Roman emperor, 56. 

Constantine VI, Roman emperor, 121. 

Const ant ius, Roman emperor, 36-58, 
60, 67. 

Cop, Nicolas, 241, 242. 

Cotta, Ursula, 220. 

Councils, see Basel, Chalcedon, Con- 
stance, Ephesus, Lateran, Pisa, 
Sardica. 

Cromwell, Oliver, 290, 295. 

Crusades, proposed by Hildebrand, 
130, 131, 141; causes, 141-43; the 
First Crusade, 143-51; later cru- 
sades, 152; results, 152-54- 

Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, 45, 
67, 103. 

Dante, 191, 198. 

Damley, husband of Mary of Scot- 
land, 266. 

David, Christian, 310. 

Decius, Roman emperor, 43. 

Diocletian, Roman emperor, 43, 74. 

Dionysius, bishop of Rome, 49. 

Dober, Leonhard, missionary, 312. 

Dominicans, the, 181, 182, 198, 224, 
275- 

Dominick, monastic founder, 164, 275. 

Donatists, the, 43, 74, 75. 

Dorylaeum, battle of, 148. 

Duns Scotus, theologian, 181, 191. 

Du Tillet, Louis, 243- 

Eck, Johann Maier of, 224-26. 

Edward III, king of England, 199, 200. 

Edward VI, king of England, 258, 
259, 287. 

Edwards, Jonathan, religious antece- 
dents, 341, 342; early life, 342, 343; 
conversion, 343, 344; marriage, 345; 

H ministry in Northampton, 345-48; 
the Religious Affections, 347; the 
Humble Inquiry, 348; at Stock- 
bridge, 348; the Freedom of Will, 
348, 350; Original Sin, 349; 
End of Creation, 350; Trtte Virtue, 
350; presidency of Princeton, 351; 
death, 351; character, 351, 352; 
mentioned, 358, 363, 368. 

Edwards, Timothy, 342. 

Embury, Philip, 334. 

Elias, of Cortona, 171. 

Elizabeth, queen of England, 259, 
261-63, 267, 282, 288, 289. 

Ephesus, Council of, 80. 

Erasmus, scholar, 231. 

Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, 
51, 52, 5.5-59- 

Eustace, crusader, 147. 



INDEX 



375 



Farel, Guillaume, reformer, 244, 245. 

Fell, Margaret, 296. 

Ferdinand, king of Aragon, 219, 273, 
274- 

Finney, Charles G., revivalist, 357. 

Fox, George, conversion, 291; re- 
ligious principles, 292-94; preach- 
ing, 294; the Quakers, 293-99; 
sufferings, 294; journeys, 295, 
296; marriage, 296; death, 298; 
his work, 298, 299. 

Francis, of Assisi, early life, 164, 165; 
conversion, 165, 166; his brother- 
hood, 166-68; missionary labors, 
169; disappointments, 170, 171; 
the stigmata, 172; death, 172; 
mentioned, 161, 177, 203. 

Francis I, king of France, 243. 

Francis II, king of France, 261. 

Franciscans, the, 166-68, 172, 173, 
181, 198, 201, 277. 

Francke, August Hermann, 305-8. 

Frederick "Barbarossa," 152. 

Frederick IV, king of Denmark, 307. 

Friedrich, elector of Saxony, 225, 229. 

Gelasius I, Pope, 121. 

Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, 93-95. 

Gersdorf, Baroness of, 308. 

Gnosticism, 5-7, 23, 24, 26, 49, 69, 
70, 119, 160. 

Godfrey, of Bouillon, crusader, early 
life, 146, 147; the march, 147- 
50; "Protector of the Holy Sepul- 
cher," 150; death, 151; character, 
151; mentioned, 159, 177. 

Gregory I, Pope, 120. 

Gregory VI, Pope, 127. 

Gregory VII, Pope, see Hildebrand. 

Gregory IX, Pope, 170. 

Gregory X, Pope, 184. 

Gregory XI, Pope, 201, 202, 205. 

Gregory, of Nazianzen, 60, 106. 

Gregory, of Nyssa, 60, 106. 

Hamilton, Patrick, 256. 

Harvard University, 342. 

Henry III, emperor, 123, 126, 127, 130. 

Henry IV, emperor, contest with 
Hildebrand, 130-35; mentioned, 
141. 

Henry V, emperor, 135. 

Henry IV, king of England, 209. 

Henry VIII, king of England, 262, 
287. 

Heraclitus, philosopher, 13. 

Hermas, early Christian writer, 5, 104. 

Hierakas, ascetic, 104. 

Hildebrand, early life, 126, 127; re- 
form in papal elections, 128; chosen 
pope, 129; his principles, 129, 130, 



152; proposes a crusade, 130, 131, 
141; contest with Henry IV, 130- 
35; death, 134; character, 135; 
mentioned, 121, 144, 147, 159. 

Honoratus, monastic founder, 92. 

Honorius, Roman emperor, 80, 91. 

Honorius III, Pope, 170. 

Hopkey, Sophy, 326. 

Hosius, bishop of Cordova, 51, 52, 
57- 

Hospitallers, the, 152. 

Howard, John, philanthropist, 320. 

Hugo, of St. Victor, theologian, 179. 

Huss, John, reformer, 210-13, 218, 
222, 226. 

Ignatius, of Antioch, 23. 

Innocent I, Pope, 79, 120. 

Innocent III, Pope, 163, 167. 

Inquisition, the, 161. 

Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, 25-27, 

66, 119. 
Isabella, queen of Castile, 219, 273, 

274- 

James VI, king of Scotland (I of 
England), 267, 289. 

Jerome, theologian, 106. 

Jerusalem, captured by Mohamme- 

'^ dans. 142; won by crusaders, 150; 

t" Latin kingdom of, 151, 152', cap- 
tured by Saladin, 152; Loyola in, 

^ 277. 

Jesuits, see Loyola. 

John, the Apostle, 25. 

John XII, Pope, 122. 

John, king of England, 199. 

John, of Gaunt, 202, 207, 209. 

Julian, Roman emperor, 59, 60. 

Julius, bishop of Rome, 57. 

Justin Martyr, early history, 8, 9; 
conversion, 10, 11; his Apology, 
11-16; accusations refuted, 12, 13; 
view of Christ, 13, 14; his Dialogue, 
9, 14; worship at Rome, 15, 16; 
mgirtyrdom, 16-19; mentioned, 23, 
76. 

Kerboga, Turkish sultan, 149. 

Knights, of St. John, 152. 

Knights Templars, 152. 

Knights, Teutonic, 152. 

Knox, John, religous antecedents, 255, 
256; early life, 256; conversion, 
257; at St. Andrews, 257, 258; 
a prisoner, 258; ministry in Eng- 
land, 258; at Geneva, and Frank- 
fort, 259; in Scotland, 260; pastor 
in Geneva, 260-62; the First 
Blast, 261; the great struggle in 
Scotland, 262, 263; Protestantism 



376 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 



established, 263-65; contest with 
Queen Mary, 265-67; death, 267. 
Knox, William, 256. 

Lainez, Diego, 278, 280, 281. 

Landulf, 182. 

Lateran Council, the, 162. 

Laud, William, Archbishop, 321. 

Law, William, 323, 325. 

Le Ffevre, Jacques, 239. 

Lefevre, Pierre, 278. 

Leo I, Pope, 65, 120. 

Leo III, Pope, 120, 121. 

Leo IX, Pope, 126, 127. 

Leo X, Pope, 225. 

Leo XIII, Pope, 184, 192. 

Liberius, bishop of Rome, 58. 

Licinius, Roman emperor, 47. 

Locke, John, philosopher, 322. 

Louis VII, king of France, 152. . 

Lollards, the, 209; see, also, Wiclif. 

Loyola, Ignatius, early life, 274; con- 
version, 275; the Spiritual Exer- 
cises, 276-78; studies, 277, 278; 
first disciples, 278; the Society 
founded, 278; the "Company of 
Jesus," 279-83; death, 280. 

Lucius 111, Pope, 163. 

Lucius Verus, 11. 

Luther, Martin, religious antecedents, 
219, 220; early Ufe, 220, 221; 
spiritual struggles, 220, 221; justi- 
fication by faith, 77, 179, 221, 222; 
the Theses, 223, 224; the Leipzig 
Disputation, 225, 226; the great 
tracts, 226-28; burns the bull, 228; 
at Worms, 229; in the Wartburg, 
229; changing attitude, 230, 231; 
marriage, 233; death,_ 231; his 
work, 232, 233; mentioned, 103, 
209, 217, 219, 237-39, 242, 255, 
273, 287. 

Major, John, theologian, 256. 
Mani, religious founder, 69. 
Manichaeanism, 69, 70, 74, 160, 161. 
Mar, the earl of, 260. 
Marburg, Colloquy at, 231, 238. 
Marcion, Gnostic, 7, 15, 31. 
Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor, 1 1 . 
MarsiHus, of Padua, 198. 
Martin, bishop of Tours, 107. 
Mary, queen of England, 259, 261, 288. 
Mary, "Queen of Scots," 260-63, 265- 

67. 
Mary, of Guise, 259, 261-63. 
Matilda, of Tuscany, 132. 
Mauburnus, of ZwoUe, 276. 
Maxentius, Roman claimant, 47. 
Maximilla, Montanist, 37. 



Melanchthon, Philip, reformer, 231, 
238, 258. 

Methodism, 325-36; name, 326; 
preaching, 328; organization, 329- 
31, 333-35; extent, 335, 336. 

Ministry, a priesthood, 45; Luther's 
view of, 232. 

Monasticism, rise of, 44, 59, 103; in- 
fluence on Augustine, 72-74; de- 
velopment of, 103-14; effects, 105, 
106, 113, 233. 

Monnica, mother of Augustine, 67, 
70-72. 

Montanism, 27-32, 35-37, 51. 

Montanus, religious enthusiast, 27. 

Moravians, the, 213, 309-15, 326, 
327, 330. 

Moray, the earl of, 260, 267. 

Moses, religious founder, 13. 

Newton, Su Isaac, 322. 

Nicaea, Council of, 51-53, 148; cap- 
ture of, 148. 

Nicholas I, Pope, 121, 123. 

Nicholas II, Pope, 128, 130. 

Nicolaitanism, 125-27, 135. 

Nitschmann, David, missionary, 312. 

Novatian, theologian and party leader, 
43, 49- 

Occam, see William of Occam. 
Oglethorpe, James Edward, founder, 

326. 
Oldcastle, Sir John, 209. 
Origen, theologian, 45, 46, 103. 
Otto I, emperor, 122, 123. 
Otto III, emperor, 123. 

Pachomius, monastic reformer, 105, 
107. 

Palladius, 88, 93-95- 

Papacy, its growth, 25, 35, 45, 57, 
58, 6s, 119-36; reform in elections, 
128; its claims, 188, 189, 197; the 
schism, 205; reformatory efforts, 
218. 

Patricius, father of Augustine, 67. 

Patrick, character and writings, 87; 
early life, 90; name, 90, 94; slavery, 
91; conversion, 91; wanderings, 
91-93; identical with Palladius? 88, 
94, 95; work in Ireland, 93-98; 
mentioned, 103. 

Paul, the Apostle, 3-5, 11, 15, 26, 28, 
33, 48, 68, 77, 92, 172, 221, 222, 364. 

Paul III, Pope, 279. 

Pelagius, theologian, 75-77, 79, 80, 
89, 93- 

Penn, William, Quaker, 296, 397. 

Pennsylvania, 297, 314. 

Persecutions, 8, 11, la, 29, 43, 74. 



INDEX 



377 



Peter, the Hermit, crusader, 145, 146. 

Peter Lombard, theologian, 179. 

Philip I, king of France, 144. 

Philip II, king of France, 152. 

Philip IV, king of France, 197. 

Philip II, king of Spain, 266. 

Pierpont, James, 345. 

Pierpont, Sarah, 345. 

Pietism, 304, 308. 

Pippin, the Short, Frankish king, 121. 

Pisa, Council of, 218. 

Plato, philosopher, 9, 14, 31. 

Poly carp, of Smyrna, 25. 

Pontitianus, 72. 

Possidius, bishop of Calama, 67. 

Pothinus, bishop of Lyons, 26. 

Potitus, 90. 

Poverty, "apostolic," 159, 160, 162, 

166, 167, 169, 209. 
Praxeas, heretic, 31, 36. 
Presbyterianism, 264. 
Prierias, controversialist, 224. 
Princeton University, 351. 
Prisca, Montanist, 27. 
Protestant, the name, 231. 
Puritans, the, 288-90, 304, 305, 321, 

341, 342. 

Quakers, see Fox. 

Raymond, of Toulouse, 146, 150. 
Richard I, king of England, 152. 
Richard II, king of England, 207, 

209, 210. 
Rizzio, David, 266. 
Robert, of Normandy, 146. 
Rodriguez, Simon, 278. 
Rome, early worship in, 15, 16; see, 

also, Papacy. 
Rudolf, of Swabia, 133, 134. 
Rusticus, Junius, Roman magistrate, 

16-19. 

Sabellius, theologian, 49. 
Sacraments, the, 75, 76, 188-90, 227, 

232, 249, 294, 303. 
Saladin, 159. 
Salmeron, Alonso, 278. 
Sardica, Council of, 57, 58, 119. 
Scholasticism, 177, 180, 181, 217, 303. 
Scifi, Clara, monastic foimder, 168. 
Scotus, see Duns. 
Separatists, the, 289. 
Septimius Severus, Roman emperor, 

29. 
Seryetus, Michel, 246. 
Sigismund, emperor, 211. 
Simony, 125-27, 130, 135. 
Socrates, philosopher, 13. 
Spangenberg, August Gottlieb, 315. 
Spener, Philipp Jakob, 304-6, 308. 



Staupitz, Johann von, 221. 

Stephen IX, Pope, 127. 

Stephen, of Blois, 146. 

Stoddard, Solomon, 343, 345, 347. 

Supper, the Lord's, 16, 45, 190, 206, 

210, 227, 238, 282, 347, 348. 
Sutri, Synod of, 123. 
Symmachus, Roman governor, 70. 

Tancred, crusader, 146, 182. 

Templars, the, 152. 

Tertullian, early life, 28; _ character 
and conversion, 29, 30; his Montan- 
ism, 29-32, 35-37; service to Latin 
theology, 30, 33; writings, 30, 31; 
view of Christianity, 31-33; attitude 
toward "heretics," 32; sense of 
sin, 32, 33; on forgiveness, 34-36; 
quarrel with Calixtus, 35, 36; on the 
Trinity, 36; his style, a quotation, 
37-39; mentioned, 44, 46, 49, 68, 
103, 119. 

Tertulhanists, 29. 

Tetzel, Johann, 223, 224. 

Theodosius, Roman emperor, 60, 71, 
91, 119. 

Thomas of Bradwardine, theologian, 
200. 

Totila, King, 108. 

Trinity, the doctrine of the, 13, 36, 
48-50, 75, 246, 361, 365. 

Trypho, Hebrew controversialist, 9, 



Ugolino, Cardinal, see Gregory IX. 

Universities, 180. 

Urban II, Pope, 143-45, 159. 

Urban IV, Pope, 183. 

Urban VI, Pope, 205. 

Valdez, religious leader, 162-64, 166, 

167, 203. 
Valens, Roman emperor, 60. 
Valentinian III, Roman emperor, 120. 
Valerian, roman emperor, 43. 
Valerius, bishop of Hippo, 73. 
Vasey, Thomas, Methodist, 334. 
Victorinus, rhetorician, 72. 

Waldenses, the, 162-64, 167, 170, 
173, 212, 293. 

Waldo, see Valdez. 

Waterland, Daniel, 323. 

Watts, Isaac, 323. 

Wenzel, king of Bohemia, 211. 

Wesley, Charles, 325-27, 335- 

Wesley, John, religious antecedents, 
321-24; early life, 324; at Oxford, 
325, 326; in America, 326; meets 
Moravians, 326, 327; conversion, 
327; preaching, 328; Methodism, or- 



X 



%7 7'f¥S, 



378 GREAT MEN OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH a . 



ganized, 329-31, 333-35*, marriage, 
331; characteristics, 331, 332; 
theology, 332, 333; death, 335; 
influence, 335, 336; mentioned, 
203, 342, 343, 345, 346, 358, 363- 

Wesley, Samuel, 324. 

Wesley, Susannah, 324. 

Westminster Assembly, the, 290. 

Whatcoat, Richard, Methodist, 334. 

Whitefield, George, evangelist, 324, 
326-28, 335, 345, 346, 358. 

Wiclif, John, antecedents, 199; early 
career, 200; theory of "lordship," 
201 ; supported by John of Gaunt, 
202; his "poor priests," 203, 204; 
his translation of the Bible, 204; 
becomes more radical, 205, 206; the 
peasant revolt, 207, 208; influence 
m Bohemia, 210-13; memory con- 
demned, 211; mentioned, 217, 222. 

William, the Conqueror, 129, 199. 

William, of Occam, 198. 

William, the Silent, 282. 

William, Thomas, reformer, 257. 

Wishart, George, reformer, 257. 

Worship, early Christian at Rome, 



15, 16; changes in third century, 
44, 45 ; monastic, no; Luther's 
conception of, 233, 238; Zwingli's, 
237, 238; in Scotland, 265. 

Xavier, Francisco de, nussionary, 278, 

280. 
Ximenes, Spanish reformer, 219, 274. 

Yale University, 342, 343, 345, 360, 
361. 

Zeisberger, David, nussionary, 314. 

Zerbolt of Zutphen, 276. 

Zinzendorf, Nicolaus Ludwig von, 
early life, 308; type of piety, 308, 
316; education, 306, 309; the 
Moravians, 309-1 1 ; missionary 
zeal, 311-13", opposition, 313, 314; 
in America, 314; last days and 
character, 315, 316; Wesley visits, 
327. 

Zosimus, Pope, 79, 80. 

Zwingli, Ulrich, reformer, 231, 237- 
39, 255- 



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